Along Old Route 66
Here are two more photographs from my trips this summer between Santa Fe and Fort Wayne. Both were taken in July as my son, MacKenzie, and I were driving across the country toward Santa Fe.
The first was taken in Oldham County, Texas along I-40 between the towns of Vega and Adrian. These grain elevators are everywhere in the Texas panhandle. Every little town has one. Some towns have more than one, and some of the elevators stand in the middle of nowhere, like this one, which is abandoned. This is rather small compared to most of them I passed. The elevators in Vega and Adrian both had large silos attached to the back of the elevator, while this one had none.
This landscape struck me because of the beautiful clouds in the sky. As we drove the last miles in Tesas before crossing into New Mexico the sky began to fill with these big puffy clouds. A few miles into New Mexico I pulled off at Mile Marker 369 and photographed the pavement’s end. Most roads in rural New Mexico are dirt roads, without even gravel to keep them from turning to mud when it rains. Along main roads like I-40, the state hides it’s primitive roads by paving short stretches near the highway so visitors will think its a paved road. Of course, New Mexico isn’t the only state to do this. In Indiana I remember rural gravel roads being paved for short stretches near highways and main roads as well and for the same reason!
