More fall colors

When I stopped by the house last night, Mom mentioned that she'd seen a particularly striking maple tree while driving through town recently. So I went and checked it out after I left work for the day. Once I saw the tree, I totally agreed with her—I just wish there'd been a way to take a clean picture of it, so to speak. Or at least one that didn't involve depriving the neighborhood of electricity and cable television:



And a closer look at some of the leaves:



As I drove home, I couldn't help but notice that the sunset was shaping up to be a very colorful one. As the color of the clouds slowly deepened, I considered my options, knowing I needed a spot where I could both get off the road safely and have a relatively unobstructed view of the mountains. And it had to be one I'd reach in the next few minutes, or else the light would be gone. Luckily for me, I was just coming upon the one section of my route home that fit all three criteria—it has a very wide shoulder that runs along part of a field (in fact, it's the same spot I photographed a group of sheep on my first day with my new camera), and once I got past the power lines there was nothing standing between me, my camera, and the southern horizon:



Better still, because of the rain we've had recently the field across the road was partially flooded, giving me the chance to get a couple of nifty reflection shots as well: