Given their altitudes, I’m not surprised that clouds and mountains would be friends. I’m a little more interested that only a single set of peaks was deemed worthy of a cloud, while its nearby neighbors remain cloudless.
Tag: America
ATV Prep
Before riding off to the environs of Bombay Beach on the shores of the Salton Sea, this fellow prepared his ATV. The upside-down American flag in front of the semi-abandoned landscape make for an appropriate pairing.
Cobra with Flag
From the Aviation Museum of Kentucky, this AH-1 Cobra was fortuitously placed relative to the flag.
Summer Sunset in Canton, New York
Sunsets might be a cliché subject for a landscape photograph, but the North Country’s specimens offer such glowing, striated features with such regularity that the truly exceptional examples can strain my belief in atmospheric models of cloud formation and light scattering.
Glow on Park Street
Park Street is the residential/academic (i.e. St.-Lawrence-housing) street orthogonal to Canton, New York’s Main Street. As night falls, the cozy pinpoint lights of individual homes is contrasted by the broad glow of the streetlights on those biggest avenues.
Summer Bridge Construction
Heavy traffic isn’t restricted to city centers! This summer, Canton’s bridge over the Grasse river is being repaired, cutting it from four lanes to two. Around 8:00, 12:00, and 4:00, traffic backs up for half a mile down Main Street. (But I’d rather the traffic than skipping the bridge repairs…)
Upon the Hill
This hilltop outside Park City, Utah found itself in the spotlight when the clouds broke in the right direction.
Ash Vortex
Fires in the dry, brush-filled country of the American West can be a serious problem. Driving along the Interstate, we saw the ash-carpeted remains of one. The wind whipped the fine particles into a vertical column at the crest of this hill.
Skies Presage Storm
Small-town America seems even smaller in the face of an epic sunset and the thunderstorm it presaged.
Curves Into the Distance
Crossing the American West last winter, I was struck by the profound changes to the landscape affected by large-scale infrastructure programs. Rural electrification resulted in an expectation of electrical availability, and power lines now stretch to the horizon.
In much the same way, lines of Interstate highway curve off to the distance, twinned East and West streams.
Big Pile
Look at this big hill and tiny fence. Though not its original purpose, I like to imagine that fence as an attempt to hold back the advance of the hill.
Die Manufaktur
In the emptiness of Wyoming, big structures along the interstate are rare. When the temperatures are ultracold and the factory is emitting tons of vapor, that brings up a new level of interest.
Wyoming Wides
Along Interstate 80, stretches of winter Wyoming are wide and barren like I wouldn’t have believed.
In a few stretches, mountains or wind farms crop up in the distance.
But it’s perhaps this image of an orange house, like something from a mid-twentieth-century landscape painting, that best captures the experience.
Western Expanse
During last winter’s road trip from New York to California, we were struck by the sheer scale of the American West: one step off the Interstate drops you into an enormous expanse. At the edge of Wyoming’s Black Hills, there’s a Bob-Ross-ian grandeur to enjoy.
Two Views of Western Nevada
Transcontinental driving in the dead of winter is all about dodging storms—but no one’s perfect. In the emptiness of Western Nevada, with only an occasional RV/farm combo to keep us company, the edge of a major storm ran into the setting sun.
“Post-apocalyptic” was the general vibe. The landscape was so large as to be without scale; I couldn’t tell you the actual height of the hills in the distance.
Decaseconds 