Berkeley at Dusk

Looking down the hillside of the campus at UC Berkeley at dusk.

California mine

An open pit mine, on the approach toward San Francisco. The main working face appears to be the upper portion, while the lower area appears to have been transformed into a tailings pond, with floating barriers and other machinery emplaced to presumably help manage the environmental impact.

San Francisco salt ponds

On the Southern end of San Francisco Bay, the water is divided up into vast shallow parcels that turn out to be one of two major sea-salt production facilities in the Unites States. The water in the various parcels is differently colored depending on the season, the stage of production, and the organisms that happen to be blooming there at any given point.

O'Hare Sunrise

A deep red sunrise emerges over Chicago O'Hare Airport.

Quad Cities Mississippi Crossing, I-280

A bridge over the Mississippi, between Illinois and Iowa, encountered in silhouette at sunset on our way back home.

Train axles in transit, Ohio

Another view of some of these train axles: passing these on the road, seeing how they are such complete and solid forms, I came to wonder if they are even actually attached to train cars, or if the car simply rests on top of its axles, using gravity and mass to hold it all together.

Train axles in transit, Ohio

Another wonderful discovery in transit: this one rows of train-car axles, each one a mighty solid steel form.

Sunrise near Lake Erie

Another early morning on the road, this time somewhere in Pennsylvania or New York by the edge of Lake Erie. On long car drives, I love starting out before dawn: by the time we even get to breakfast time, I am hundreds of miles closer to my destination, and lunchtime is a full day's 600 miles or so, leaving the afternoon and evening for play at our destination or stopping point.

Partially assembled vans in transit, Western Ohio

On Interstate 80/90, between Chicago, Illinois and Toledo, Ohio, we passed literally hundreds of partially assembled vans going in the other direction, all neatly stacked in little rows on flatbeds like this one. Clearly, there is a factory somewhere near Detroit or Toledo that is making vans (no surprise there), but what was unexpected to me is that they would then be hauled hundreds of miles to some other factory to be completed.

Dawntrail, Illinois

On a road trip this summer, a contrail at dawn, somewhere in the middle of Illinois, with my daughter sleeping gently in the back seat.

Family Operated, Lone Tree, Iowa

I think I shall simply allow this wonderful sign to speak for itself.

Nesting Boxes, Waterworks Park, Iowa City

In the middle of the big lake in Waterworks Park in Iowa City stands this fantastically modernistic stellation of nesting boxes, all well-occupied during the summer with chirping, gossipy parents.

Lamp at night, Iowa City

An elegant web-work patterned lamp near the Hancher Theater in Iowa City.

Well-TP'ed tree, Iowa City

A few weeks ago, one of our neighbors had the tree in front of their house quite thoroughly TP-ed. Since it happened only a few weeks before Halloween, I thought at first that it might have just been some sort of awesome spider-web decoration, but pulling up closer I saw otherwise, and got to explain TP-ing to my kindergartener.

Cicada, FW Kent Park, IA

A beautiful big cicada, passed away after its brief moment mating in the sun.

Dry bridge, FW Kent Park, IA

One of the other neat things about the lake in FW Kent Park is that the trail circling around it has a collection of antique steel road bridges that have been brought into the park and refurbished. They too look quite different without water.

Green lake bottom, FW Kent Park, IA

Another look across the great green shallow bowl of the bottom of the emptied lake, this time down its long axis.

Spillway, FW Kent Park, IA

This is where the lake normally drains out, down this concrete spillway. It was still where the stream is draining, but instead of spilling over the top, it was passing through a little gate at the bottom, actuated by the metal bar at the left side.

Cracked-mud lake bed, FW Kent Park, IA

The mud on the bottom of the lake had dried into a spongy surface with massive and deep cracks. While the top was quite solid and dusty, it was still damp beneath, and shifted in an unsettling way under our feet as we walked, especially in the areas where the foliage was much thicker and we could not see our feet. Notice also the freshwater clam dried out between the cracks.

Remnant river, FW Kent Park, IA

Here is the last bit of stream that remained winding through the middle of lake, a mere few inches across.

Mystery crate, FW Kent Park, IA

Also scattered on the lake bed were a number of odd wooden crates, dark, decayed, and irregular in shape. I was unable to figure out what they might have been from or for: maybe they were part of stocking the pond with fish? Note also the monarch butterfly in the foreground.

Lakebed stump, FW Kent Park, IA

One of the hallmarks of artificial lakes is the waterlogged tree stumps that lurk down below on the bottom, left in place when the land was cleared to make the lake. When the lake was drained, these skeletons of its past rise back to view again.

Fishing pier, FW Kent Park, IA

One edge of the lake has this square fishing pier, now standing high and dry above a little muddy puddle. When they first drained the lake, I wonder if they tried to do anything about the fish, or if it all just stank to high heaven for the first few weeks.

Lake under construction, FW Kent Park, IA

Another view onto the empty lake, past the orange safety barriers around construction points upon the shore as well.

Lake under construction, FW Kent Park, IA

A couple of months ago, we went to one of my favorite parks, a few towns over, to go and walk around the lake at its center. Only when we arrived, the lake wasn't there! It's an artificial dammed-stream reservoir lake, and I guess they were doing some sort of construction and refurbishment. So instead of the usual water, the boat ramp led down into a great flat bowl of greenery growing out of the lake-bottom mud.

DFW emergency training grounds

One of the things that I think is really neat are training grounds for emergency responders like fire crews. Every big airport has one of these and some, like this one at Dallas-Fort Worth, are practically amusement parts of interesting course and set-pieces: jets of different sizes, helicopters, towers, chemical tanks: they've got it all, and it's even more fun to see people running trials, hosing down bright flames of kerosene amongst gouts of thick black smoke.

University of Arizona Student Union, Tucson

More student union colonnade

University of Arizona Student Union, Tucson

Another University of Arizona student union colonnade

University of Arizona Student Union, Tucson

Back to the University of Arizona: a composition of sky and struts on one of the many porch-like regions of the student union.

Subdivision skeleton, near Dallas, TX

From ends back to beginnings: the skeleton of a growing new subdivision, budding from the edge of its parent.