Travel Into the Expanse.

...

It is difficult to describe the immensity of the southwestern United States.  High plains, deserts and mountains are all there, as if they were spread on a banquet table.  It is a place to feast your eyes and rest your spirit.  I shall always be drawn there.




Another Desert Home


On my journey, I was lucky to get photos of dozens of formerly useful structures.  I shall try to share a civilised number of them here.  Frankly, I imagine me working on this collection for months to come, looking for the most poignant fraction of each image.  I'm sure it will keep me out of trouble...





Tumbledown Home - NM


Out here, a house of stone is only temporary.  The heat can be merciless.  Long droughts are punctuated with flooding rains.  The "economy" doesn't mean much here.  Subsistence is more important.

I bet many merry Christmases, birthdays, weddings and funerals were celebrated here.  How could they not?

I wonder if any spirits from those times might remain.  They could stay here to get away from the hustle and bustle of the cemetery.  










Snowfall on the Mountain - Directly in front of me. Dang.


I raced along the highway in Arizona keeping a watchful eye on those distant clouds.  They were suspended just above the mountains, directly in front of me.  As I hurried to beat the storm, snowplows pulled over to let me by.

I wondered if they were laughing and saying "We'll see him - in the Spring!"  If I were them, that is what I would've said.  I chuckled a bit and opened the throttle a bit wider.  This was no time for lallygagging about.







 
I survived my dash through the snow, but not because I got by before the storm arrived.  No, the blizzard and I waltzed through the mountains of Arizona together.  I found refuge in the town of "Snow Flake."  I might have taken a clue from the name, but I was too spent from the long climb to the top of the mountain.  Next morning, the outdoor air was 9 degrees.  It was so cold, I went back to sleep for an extra hour.  When I awoke, my car alerted me that the two tires on the north side of the car were low on air.

I looked for a long time before finding a Jiffy Lube willing to inflate my tires.  I was puzzled because these tires never lost pressure before.  Then, I realized the air was squirted into the tires at 85 degrees.  Now, it was probably shrivelled with cold. 

When I arrived at Yuma that afternoon, I took a couple of blizzard pictures of my car.  It was the only evidence the storm ever existed.  I hit the car wash right after taking this shot.

...