Flares Of A Mad Orange Sunset ...

“Meanwhile the sunsets are mad orange fools raging in the gloom....”

 ~ Jack Kerouac

 ~ 1922-1969

Sunflares spark an abstract beauty around a mad orange sunset on July 5, 2021 along the Ironton Rail Trail, which loops more than nine miles through Whitehall Township, the Borough of Coplay and North Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania.

Looking more like the moon than the sun and shining with a wild beauty, the sun holds court in a hazy, milky sky.

The orange haze in the evening sky is likely the result of wildlife smoke in southern Canada affecting conditions very high in the atmosphere.

The Ironton Railroad was a shortline railroad in Lehigh County. Originally built in 1861 to haul iron ore and limestone to blast furnaces along the Lehigh River, traffic later shifted to carrying Portland Cement when local iron mining declined in the early 20^th century. Much of the railroad had already been abandoned when it became part of Conrail in 1976, and the last of its trackage was removed in 1984.

 

In 1996, Whitehall Township purchased 9.2 miles of the right-of-way from Conrail, transforming it into the Ironton Rail Trail.

 

Wild Is The Sun ...

“God made a home in the sky for the sun;

it comes out in the morning

like a happy bridegroom,

like an athlete eager to run a race.

It starts at one end of the sky

and goes across to the other.

Nothing can hide from its heat.”

  ~ The Holy Bible

  ~ Psalm 19: 4-6

Shining with a wild beauty – looking more like the moon than the sun – the orange-tinged sun holds court in a hazy, milky sky over Trexler Memorial Park, Allentown, Pennsylvania on September 15, 2020.

Wildfire smoke from the West Coast caused the sky to appear as it did as sunset neared in the waning summer. Since the smoke was at the altitude where planes fly – around 30,000 feet – it could be seen but people could not smell it, and there were no air quality issues.