Florida Keys Day 2, Part 1 | Now, say 'halo' to the sun

The lower arc of a solar halo is visible, as two jet contrails cast shadows below the sun, as viewed north of Fort Myers.

The marvels along Friday's route through Southwest Florida started with a continuation of a theme struck up the night before: a halo.

This time, one encircled the sun. The colorful arc, with red on the inside and blue on the outside, is visible in this photo only on the underside of our star. For a halo to form, high cirrus clouds, containing ice crystals, have to be present. Soon after I took this, those cirrus clouds moved on - and thus, no more halo.

Adding to the phenomenon were two contrail streams from jets that had passed overhead earlier. They both are casting shadows in this image, backdropped by some thin cirrus cloud cover.

For this shot, I pulled over to a rest area off Interstate 75 north of Fort Myers and Lehigh Acres, one of the many pits of the nation birthed by the real estate glut. That's where I probably could have purchased a house with the change in my pockets - but then I wouldn't have any quarters for the parking meters in Key West, where I arrived Saturday. Unfortunately, rain ruined much of the day as far as photography is concerned.