Driveway mandala, Coralville, IA

Colorful mandala-style pattern in a person's driveway in Coralville.  Must be recent or temporary, since I can't see it on Google Maps.

Uncle Pennybags, Iowa City

Monopoly's "Uncle Pennybags" stenciled on a fence by a public trail.

Masquerade Knight, Iowa City

I just love the incongruity of this yard decor.

Lost wings, Iowa City

Some child's lost fairy wings, suspended on a post in hopes their owner might reclaim them.

Floral fence, Iowa City

Florally decorated fence near our house in Iowa City.

A Yin-Yang of Stoned Cats

Our two cats, recumbent in a catnip-induced haze.

Vera contemplates her shadow

My younger daughter Vera contemplates her shadow.

Red hills, Wyoming

Deep red hills in Eastern Wyoming, a thread of road rising straight up across their height.

Seminoe Reservoir, Wyoming

Closer look into the interesting shapes of the Seminoe Reservoir shoreline.

Seminoe Reservoir and ridge, Wyoming

Textured ridge sweeping right to left as it sinks down into the Seminoe Reservoir.

Seminoe Reservoir, Wyoming

A deep-cut dam and reservoir in the middle of Wyoming.

Killpecker Sand Dunes, Wyoming

In central Wyoming, a long scraped channel of land, dozens of miles in total, hosts a myriad of slowly migrating sand dunes, of which these are just a few.

Ridgeline near Eden, Wyoming

A closer look at this nicely scalloped ridgeline.

Ridgeline near Eden, Wyoming

Scalloped edge of a Wyoming ridgeline, its upper edge highlighted in pure white: perhaps a bit of snow?

Texasgulf tailings reservoir, Wyoming

Stark white fan into dark water marks the artificiality of this dumping site for mining waste---though not a recent one. Searching online, this appears to date from the 1970s, and the only recent mentions of it that I find are talking about its quality as fishing site and the potential peril to local communities if the aging and unmaintained earth dam should give way.

Dry canyon, Wyoming

A broad and shallow dry canyon, white against the backdrop of the brown Wyoming plains.

Spotty ridges, Wyoming

Wavy Wyoming ridges, lightly spotted with vegetation.

Mille-feuille ripples, near Kemmerer, Wyoming

The streaked patterns on the ridges of these dry Wyoming hills make me think of the streaked chocolate/vanilla patterns on mille-feuille pastries.

Willard Bay, Great Salt Lake, Utah

Lovely complex smears of water and land clumping irregularly in the Northern boundaries of Great Salt Lake.

Willard Bay, Great Salt Lake, Utah

Long blue, green, and white smears of life on the Northeast edge of Great Salt Lake.

Impoundment junctions, Great Salt Lake, Utah

By the Northeastern short of Great Salt Lake, the waters are sliced up not for industry but in support of nature reserves instead.

Impoundment junction, Great Salt Lake, Utah

This appears to be part of the gating that regulates water in and out of the impoundments at this complex colored boundary.

Impoundment junction, Great Salt Lake, Utah

Another slide of complex colors and boundaries at the boundaries of these water impoundments in Great Salt Lake.

Red waters, Great Salt Lake, Utah

Deep red waters, showing through in places to the white bottom beneath, testify to the unusual chemistry and life of this great water body.

Impoundment junction, Great Salt Lake, Utah

Beauty in the varicolored junctions of this industrial mining impoundment.

Clyman Bay, Great Salt Lake, Utah

The sharp artificial barriers and differentiated colors of Clyman Bay mark it as a site of industrial operations: here, evaporation concentrates the waters in these impoundments, making a mineral-rich broth that is used to feed a fertilizer plant.

Dry spots near pumping station, Great Salt Lake, Utah

Irregular spots in the dry salted basin around the retreated form of Great Salt Lake. The second line branching out from beneath the rail line at the top is a canal going into a pumping station designed to shift waters between two different arms of the lake.

Dry basin, Great Salt Lake, Utah

Swirling white-brown patterns in a dry basin around the railway in Great Salt Lake.

Great Salt Lake, Utah

One of the low-water lobes of Great Salt Lake, lurking in a strange dull blue below the bisecting railway line.

Northern Salt Lake railway, Utah

Across the blasted dry Northern reaches where Great Salt Lake once flowed, there spans a perfect straight thin line of dark railway.

Mine, Nevada

A sprawling open mining complex out deep in the Nevada desert.

Wind Farm, Northern CA

Wind farm scattered across variously colored farming fields in Northern California.

Port Chicago Naval Magazine, Concord, CA

The odd branching lines here mark this as a magazine, storing high explosives carefully separated from one another in underground bunkers, each served by its own bit of branching rail line. Caution is indeed indicated: Port Chicago was the site of an infamous disaster during the Second World War, in which unsafe conditions led to the explosion of two ships, practically vaporizing both along with several hundred nearby soldiers. Interestingly, this incident apparently also indirectly helped lead to military de-segregation.

Tesoro Golden Eagle Refinery, Pacheco, CA

Complex chemical engineering piping in this refinery North of San Francisco.

Copart, Martinez, CA

A massive lake of used cars, tightly packed as they await auction and redistribution.

Benicia-Martinez Bridge, CA

Another view of the mighty, crisp straight lines of the Benicia-Martinez Bridge.

Benicia-Martinez Bridge, CA

Massive paired highway bridges carry traffic across an inland bay North of San Fancisco.

Chabot Space & Science Center, Oakland, CA

High in the hills above Oakland, its cluster of spheres and domes instantly marks the Chabot Space and Science Center as an astronomical observatory.

Mormon Temple, Oakland, CA

Oakland's Mormon temple looks kind of like the US Capitol Building, its winged and golden-domed form sitting at the end of a long formal garden space.

Curving development, Oakland, CA

Curving hillside (perhaps an ex-quarry), now hosting a tightly packed array of rising new multiplex high-density housing in Oakland, California.

Everport Container Terminal, Oakland, CA

Another massive wing of the Oakland container shipping facility stands on an apparently entirely artificial spit of sculpted land.

Container port, Oakland, CA

Oakland hosts the vast, yet entirely homogeneous structures of a modern container shipping port, with monstrous flat-reaching cranes that hoist boxcars of goods one by one between ships and shore.

USS Hornet, Alameda, CA

An old aircraft carrier, the USS Hornet, is now a museum.

Abandoned air base, Alameda, CA

An abandoned Navy airbase in Alameda, which in my head I always associate with the "nuclear wessels" of Star Trek 4.

Alcatraz Island, CA

Another infamous retired location of San Francisco Bay: the famous and defunct Alcatraz prison sits on its isolated island far out in the Northern reaches of the Bay.

Treasure Island, San Francisco

A closer look at the curious octagonal shape of artificial Treasure Island.

Yerba Beuna - Treasure Island, San Francisco

Halfway between San Francisco and Oakland is a curious pair of island: the Bay Bridge goes through (under) the pointy natural rock of Yerba Buena, while behind it lies the perfect flatness of the octagonal artificial Treasure Island, first built for a world's fair, then taken over by the Navy before incrementally moving back into civilian hands in recent years.

Bay Bridge, San Francisco

The long high main span of the San Francisco Bay Bridge from the air.

Downtown San Francisco

A closer look into the skyscrapers of downtown San Francisco.

Downtown San Francisco

Downtown San Francisco, seen soon after takeoff.