Interesting night so I'll post about it. Plenty of recent rain and a clear calm night coming, so low fog...with a full moon right? Of course not. It's impossible to get it to "sea out" in the flats of western IA near the Missouri River when there is a damn moon to light it at night. Something always messes it up when the moon phase is right. I left real early, as I could see fog forming in town. Like 11pm. Headed in the general direction of Murray Hill. Hit dense ground fog just across the river, then out of it. As I drive north I see clouds on the horizon. I thought, hmmm, cirrus or other clouds out there. But I soon noticed I was gaining on them far too quickly to be higher up clouds. Soon I was under the "fog". I thought, great stratus, but really it was more just fog flowing out from the bluffs/hills to the east and not coming down to the ground like usually happens when the fog rolls out of those hills. I know this because as I drove up to Murray Hill I hit fog in the parking lot. It was like it was "sea'ing out" up in the hills then blowing out west above the flats. The above shot is from down on the flats looking southwest at the bluffs.

I drove back south and noticed I drove out of that deck of elevated fog as soon as I passed the point where the bluffs are further from the highway. Like get far enough away from the bluffs and it was mixing out by there. Nothing but clear skies and actual dense ground fog forming like it was supposed to. That was because with zero clouds above it was cooling off better.

Drive back north and you get back under those "fog clouds" in the same exact area. They allowed some gaps for a while and the lighting was down right amazing, with the moon and crystal clear skies above the deck of fog. A recent extremely dense in town fog deal, I noticed the fog was making the stop lights stupidly vivid green and red. The most dense fog I'd ever seen in town. Like get enough mist/saturation and it amplifies lights somehow. Something like this seemed like it must have been happening now. Above me in areas around the moon the sky was jet black, black as it gets. The white "fog clouds" were amazingly white in the moon light. The horizon though I was certain there were auroras or something. It was this vivid blue. Never seen anything quite like it really. I played with all that on these tracks north of Mondamin Iowa. This while I waited for Chris and Evan to get up there. Before this while at Murray Hill I did venture on up by myself, which is always fun. Wasn't clearing the fog so I came back down to where things were more interesting.

Looking south now, amazing night lighting. These were a mix of 400 and 800 ISO shots. There was a constant owl hoot happening now which was cool and eventually a whole lotta coyotes once again.

The "fog clouds" streaming out of the hills were getting thicker again now. There was very little wind at the ground. Those clouds were moving quite rapidly west though. Perhaps this is why they wouldn't come down. I think what had to happen was the hills cooled off quickly, fog formed, blew west before the flats had cooled so stayed elevated off the deck. Then once they were well established they were forming a blanket over the flats, not letting temps fall. So there was next to no ground fog here, while you get away from the hills much and you could find thick stuff. It was strange and something I'd never seen happen in all these trips for the stuff now.

Get the stuff just the right thickness and you'd get vivid moon corona'ing.

North again, more of that crazy blue at night on the horizon. This is seriously middle of the night, not near sunset and not near sunrise.

I noticed how twisted the tracks would look on the 10mm so kept messing with that.

Train. Very slow train. I didn't want to try shots after I figured he could see me on there, for obvious reasons. Probably looks a little suspicious someone messing around on a track at 2 a.m. I moved into the grass pretty early and completely under estimated the power of train lights lol. I was sitting down there and his lights clear those trees down there. I was like, awww crap I stand out like a sore thumb. Tried to flatten myself into the grass as much as I could, which probably looked more odd than if I'd just set up the tripod next to the tracks and took some shots. The thing was moving like 5mph too. The horn was loooovvely from there.

Think damn loud and damn bright.

Chris and Evan now there. They brought more saturation with them and we mostly lost the moon all together under the "fog cloud deck".

Another train. We went up on top of Murray Hill after this. We get up there, still no where near getting lighter yet and a car pulls in down below. Ended up being another photog. I was surprised anyone would walk up that in the dark with 2 other cars there. I sure as hell wouldn't lol. I'm a wuss though.

Interesting "morning glory" I guess. I leave and soon as I turn the corner and look back I'm like, awww hell roll cloud perched on top of the damn bluffs the entire length. It was like that for at least 10 minutes that I saw. We think it was doing that for a long time while we were up there but you really never noticed it like that while in part of it. It was like there was a slight east wind now, evidently lifting the warmer air out here up and evaporating the fog. I don't know, it was just another thing I'd never seen there.