Sometimes I Drop The Ball

Last night, on my way home from work, I noticed that the storm system moving in had formed some absolutely breathtaking walls of chiseled, mountain-like clouds. Nothing but blue sky to the east, wall of clouds in the other direction. I had my computer bag with me, so I pulled over and got out my camera. Dead batteries. I was a little disappointed. Not that I could have captured all of the magnificence, but that I knew that the battery was done a while ago.

This morning, I got on the highway, the new Radiohead* providing a soundtrack, and I see a perfectly framed picture roll out in front of me. The Rte. 30 extension, headed north for a jog, looks straight into a newer subdivision of homes and is flanked on both sides by trees. Where the road turns east in the distance, there's a grove of trees atop a hill. They were mostly green but a few had gone yellow. Above the trees, there was a narrow, horizonal strata of light gray clouds, a narrow, medium gray stripe above that, then a wide horizontal band of dark gray throughout the rest of the sky.

Seeing this, I remembered that I forgot to charge my camera last night. With the sun obscured, this beautiful scene in front of me was vibrant and full of colors and grayscale clouds. A study, if you will. Ugh.

Naturally, seconds later, I drive slowly by an accident where two state patrol cars were deciding what to do with the Nissan Z that had gone off the highway and tried to climb the embankment before coming to a 60-degree stop in the grass. That would have been a sweet perspective shot. Alas, no camera.

Next, the North Aurora Auto Mall sign was skeletal. It was intact last night (I notice these sorts of things) so either they started dismantling it or the wind tore it to shreds. Another great shot with the new construction in the background and this sign (not that old itself) in its death throes.

And, finally, as I exited at Rte. 59, I rolled up behind a Volvo C30 (MFG plates) from New Jersey. I'm guessing this model hasn't been officially launched yet or it's happened in the past month. Probably not the most exciting thing for everyone else, but I notice the first time I see a new model on the road.

Might not seem like it, but I don't have time for a thousand words. A few pictures would've been nice. I'm charging the camera now...

* = In Rainbows has already grown on me. Considering the amount of times I've listened to other Radiohead records, I'm glad I had some birthday money to forward to this experiment. I highly recommend you download it since there is no actual minimum price. If you leave the payment field blank, you'll skip to the download part. You wouldn't be "getting away with it" either - they want you to have the music. I'll go into more detail about the music later.