Cleaning the Pics From the Blackberry

These are some pics from this week as well as some trips in the past that I never got around to posting.



"The moon, like a testicle, hangs low in the sky" Robin Williams

Yep, I'm warped. Every time I see a full moon rising or about to set, that quote is what rises to the top. This was on US75 between Atoka OK and Durant.



A Smart Car. These caricatures of a real car make me nervous - I feel like I'm a bull in a china shop sharing the road with one of these. I'd feel the same way if I ran next to your kid's go kart, too.



Northbound on Texas State Highway 70 in the Canadian River basin. At seventy mph - I was running out of daylight and didn't have time to stop - thus the interesting effect in the bottom picture. None of the pics I take with this camera really give much depth of field - the bluffs are mighty impressive, I'm here to tell ya.




More bluffs, but these are on US412 eastbound - east of Woodward OK. I think these are called the Glass Mountains - just past the crest shown in the bottom pic is a pull over area labeled Glass Mountain State Park.


One of the first warm days in Oklahoma. This is I40 on Lake Eufaula west of Lotawatta Road. Yes, that really is the name of a road, and it has it's own exit. There was a lot of fisherfolk, pent up from the winter, finally getting out and enjoying themselves that day. Do all those cars on the side of the road have some sort of mechanical failure? Nope, it's the fishing culture out and about, and walking to their favorite spot. These are the more affluent of the group - they've got boats, and that particular area next to the dike is always a hot spot.


Westbound I70 west of Topeka, KS. This is something you don't want to see - no eastbound traffic. It's a clue - maybe, just maybe, there is a really bad wreck up ahead.


Sure enough. I saw a helicopter take off before I got there - I was behind a hill and couldn't see from where it took off, but I sure knew I was getting close.



That is where all the traffic was. I'm sure we've all been there, done that. Morons trying to drive down the median just to make it five hundred yards further down the road - idjuts on the CB carrying on and spreading rumors - it's just a royal pain in the kiester without the delay.


Westbound I70 west of Kingdom City MO during a heavy rainstorm. This one had both sides shut down for a while. Missouri uses a cable/steel post barrier to keep the traffic separated in a lot of areas. You can see just how effective it was - the semi you see was westbound, lost it and wound up in the eastbound lanes. There was an eastbound flatbed behind the gray Volvo that had most of it's cab sheared off. There was also a collection of cars involved in minor fender benders behind this for a couple of miles - they didn't get shut down in time coming up on stopped traffic. After I got home from that trip, I looked up the news reports. Apparently no one was killed, but traffic was shut down and detoured for several hours.

I consider myself fortunate - I've never been involved in a pile up in any way, whether as a participant or one of the first on the scene. About all I'd be good for would be calling 911 or traffic control anyways. I also consider myself fortunate that most of the memorable things I see can be categorized as "scenic" rather than "catastrophic," but I do get a share of the latter.