I left Bishop after lunch on Saturday.  My parents (as usual) were great and came up to help me load the truck.  Since I was sort of on a time crunch (needed to be in Minneapolis by Monday morning), I didn’t get to take as many pictures as I’d like.

Driving across the western high plains – you really get an idea of the scope and enormonity of this country.  Also makes you question whether this world is really getting overpopulated when you can drive a hour and not see a single sign of civilization.

Driving through Nevada, it really becomes apparent that most of this state is really just one big empty place with people stratching out an existence wherever they happened to land.  And then there’s a lot of evidence where people just gave up and left.  Abandoned houses probably outnumber habitated ones ten-to-one.

Shrine to the Tractor Wheel Gods?

Even the cemeteries are dry, dusty affairs.

Who lived here before? What did they do?  Why did they leave?  How long has all of this been sitting there?

Who knew Nebraska had such beautiful rolling hills?

For the first time in weeks, I took the 35mm off my camera to use my big-gun, the 70-200mm to take this amazing late-afternoon picture.