Plant ID at 60 MPH - What the heck was that?!?

Seen on the median strip travelling north on 680 through Castro Valley - a tree with large light colored flowers and no foliage to speak of. When I saw it whizzing by, I said "What the heck is that?".



An SNL skit that I saw in my formative years pops up at times like this. Steve Martin and Bill Murray, wondering "What the He** is that?". I just can't stop laughing at this, even years later.

From Wikipedia

So what the heck was it?  Maybe a Paulownia of some sort. I will attempt to take a 60 MPH photo of it soon.

One month later....FINALLY....I was able to get a photo of the tree. And now it has leaves. There was one on the west side of 680 as well and I was able to get a photo at 20 MPH because traffic had slowed. So here it is:


It took me hours to get that slideshow to work. Here's the instructions. You have to get back to picasaweb for it to match the instructions. Nowadays this link www.picasaweb.com redirects you to google+. I swear that I found a little link that said "go to picasaweb" and now i can't find it. Ah, there it is!

And now it's gone again! Apparently it only appears briefly. hmmm.

So how do you get it to appear?

This person seems to know how.