Long and Lonely Views – A Train to Nowhere

Where are those places in which you feel at home, feel like your true self? What do the landscapes that tug at your heart and anchor you look like? Have you found mind-expanding inspiration in a particular environment?

I never expected to feel so inspired by the wide-open expanse of the desert areas in the American West. The vast open area stirs something deep within me. It’s as if the big sky reaches down to the horizon line, follows long-runnin’ tracks across the Earth, up through my feet and straight into my heart.

As someone who fears dark water and not being able to see what lies beneath, at first blush I thought perhaps the scrubby desert-scape is the antithesis of that. Everything is out in the open and available to be drunk in by your eyes.

But this is a trick your own mind plays on you. The dry range holds many secrets in the ripples and folds of its surface. As in so many things, we need to learn to see beyond the way we think something is, to the way it really is.

These photos were snapped along California 62, near what the map said was the “town” of Rice. There wasn’t much doin’ out there – just some train cars, tracks, and a few other odd remnants of humanity. While short on the trappings of society, it was big on thinkin’ room.