More experimenting with the new camera while we headed south for Christmas... (And if you're wondering, the tally was over 350 pictures. Averaging better than one per mile...)

Once we turned south and entered the Greenie state, weather was not a problem. There was, however, a lot more traffic.

Fortunately their law enforcement appeared to be out in full force

so most drivers were behaving themselves. The biggest headache on this leg of the trip was construction. Or, more specifically, the idiocy of resident drivers when encountering construction.

Two lanes of traffic were backed up, I kid you not, more than four miles simply because we had to condense down into a single lane.

For, maybe, a half-mile. Tops. And as soon as we got into that single lane, traffic sped up to an incredible 55 mph. But apparently the concept of merging is alien to these urban drivers.

Folks, it's easy. One vehicle from the left lane, then one from the right.

Repeat.

Ad infinitum.

But no, these people couldn't figure that out. So traffic flowed at less than 10 mph, in stops and starts, for miles. Left lane creeps forward, and then the right. Back and forth.

When this SUV came alongside with their DVD screens in the back seats,

I thought about stepping out and asking them to turn the sound up so we could hear. But then I noticed they were watching The Polar Express

and decided it wasn't worth the trouble.

We also leap-frogged with a reefer truck. Youngest son and I amused ourselves watching the temperature guage on his trailer bounce back and forth between -8 and -13.

Near as we could tell, if he was moving, the trailer got colder. When he was idling, the temperature would rise.

Probably the most interesting vehicle in the right-hand lane was a truck from the gas field county. Towing two huge tanks of a mysterious "corrosive" liquid.

The tanks were capped, of course, but you should have seen the fluid sloshing around in there with the stop-and-go traffic. But the real fun was watching the vehicles behind his tanks.

This little red car zoomed right up to the trailer, until he saw the sloshing fluid and warning labels. Then he stayed a good distance back.

Naturally, someone in our lane saw that double-deep gap in their lane and slipped their SUV right in.

Until they, too, saw the warning signs, and dropped back just like the driver in the red car.

And then a white car sidled over into the gap.

And also dropped back.

It was actually kinda fun to watch.

The crawl down the Front Range did give us opportunity to enjoy a few Christmas decorations.

For much longer than we would have liked.

After creeping for so long, the remaining drive to Denver seemed like an instant. Before we knew it, we were passing that northern landmark...

and headed past Downtown.

I was happy to see the one building was still lit up like a giant green present. But I have to admit... I have no idea whose building that is.

Their local stadium was also aglow

as was one apartment,

a steeple,

and one office tower.

And I've been meaning to mention all the new pedestrian spans across the interstate

accessing the stops on their new light rail.

The Tech Center had their usual decorations

and before you knew it, we were left with naught but traffic to light our way. (Hey Sis, do you recognize the restaurant on the left? The one that used to be a Dutch windmill?)

Further south, we found our way lighted by a star high up on a rocky butte.

This time of year, would it be inappropriate to mention the Ku Klux Klan used to burn crosses on the same site?

By this point of the night, most of my pictures were blurry streaks of light. Kinda hard to avoid at interstate speeds, you know. But near the end of our journey I was able to snag one more good shot.

By moonlight.