The Big Empty
A few more shots from my recent road trip. I left Guymon Oklahoma and headed west to Boise City and from there to Clayton New Mexico. I picked up I-25 in Raton and in Tridadad Colorado I took 350 to La Junta, what was once a spur on the Santa Fe Trail, and then to Granada when I took 385 to I-70 in Burlington.
This is the territory I think of as the Big Empty. The high plains, where the wind is constant, the land gently swells like a calm sea of grass, and there is nothing, nothing between the little villages and towns but the random farm house here and there, and, sometimes, a line of high voltage towers that stand across the landscape in relentless single file from horizon to horizon. Driving it at night, the little towns appear out of the darkness like small galaxies, and the random house lights seem as isolated stars slowly drifting by you in the night, while overhead the light of the milky way blazes down over everything.
I love travelling through this place. I’d go nuts if I had to live in it. I hear that once upon a time many pioneers did just that. But there is a solitude within me, that only this place speaks to. Somehow, it’s good for me to visit here.
Highway 64, Near Guymon, Oklahoma
Sign - Guymon Oklahoma
Grain Elevator And Propane Tank Trailors - Boise City Oklahoma
Tracks Near Cheyanne Wells, Colorado
June 1st, 2006 at 6:34 pm
I hear that once upon a time many pioneers did just that.
But they didn’t have mail, radio, TV, the Internet, lots of books, a variety of food, etc.
Of course, if I had the money for it, I’d be a hermit.
June 1st, 2006 at 7:24 pm
I’d thought that once…but it wouldn’t be good for me. I can be alone in a crowd if I choose. But it’s good to have neighbors to chat with. Buying into my Baltimore rowhouse neighborhood has been one of the better things I’ve done.
The Internet. I had broadband Internet in the middle of the Big Empty in the Oklahoma pan handle. At a cheap motel. Ha! I love it. People everywhere have the world at their fingertips now.