A belated Sky Friday (or: Sky Saturday)

Well, I'd meant to post these yesterday, but then, we left for a hike up in the mountains that took up most of our day.  With all good intentions, I was going to post them after I got back.  But, between a poor nights' sleep and a ~8 mile hike at 10,000' elevation with 1,700' up and down...I was a bit tired.  Add a beer to that, and I was done for the night.

Anyway, I've been wanting to post these - they are a small sampling from our drive across the country.

One from several of the states we drove through (not counting CT, NY, NJ, IN or IL, as nothing interesting going on in the sky there).  These are all "sky only" photos, lending them that abstract feeling that I am so fond of.  All were taken while driving and usually at the shortest focal length my lens allows:  55mm.  I've missed my wide-angle lens so much that I finally broke down and bought a used Nikkor 17-70mm DX on eBay.  It gets good reviews, and will be my landscape/walkabout lens.  It should arrive sometime next week.

Shown from east to west:

Pennsylvania

Morning light creates dark edges on this huge cumulus cloud top, giving an appearance of large cottonballs with lavender and pink tints

Ohio

Mid-afternoon, south of Cleveland and north of Akron, light defines the texture of this cumulus cloud system

Iowa

Higher altocumulus clouds are in the background, while more cumulus take up most of the sky

Nebraska

Loose clouds form vertical and horizontal shapes in the near sky, while higher cirrus form an edgeless background, muting the blue of the sky

Colorado

Near the I-80/I-76 junction northeast of Denver, this pair of contrasting clouds forms an unusual shape

Sky Fridays to resume on their usual day next week.