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You will see the skyline of Chicago – a once mighty city – often referred to as the “Second City” because its population that was second only to New York.  

“Second City” – soon to be Fourth.

Los Angeles passed up Chicago as “Second City” a while back,  Houston will pass it up as Third in the next census or soon after.  The “Windy City” (so named for its politicians, not its weather) is being abandoned as was Detroit.  Higher taxes, raging crime and corrupt politicians chased out businesses and taxpayers who could afford to leave.  The pols then raised taxes again to compensate and the spiral continues.  Illinois residents are furious with Chicago for breaking the State’s budget.  There was talk of abolishing the State of  Illinois and parcelling it out to the surrounding states.  I don’t have a dog in this hunt, but if I was – for example – an Indiana Resident, I’d tell my representatives, “No way you are going to pawn off Illinois debt on me!”

Driving in this city with an 18 wheeler is ain’t no picnic neither.  Anyone who says different is a masochist who loves to be abused.  The same goes for Los Angeles and New York.  Houston and Dallas are merely frustrating and confusing because the Jill, the Navigation Computer has no clue about recent construction and thinks you are on the surface streets when you are actually on the expanded freeway.  She keeps urging you  to turn left and take the on ramp – until out of desperation you move to the older left-hand lanes.  Then she will shut up and recognize the Interstate again. 

Could be Texas or Kansas or Tennessee, for that matter.  Crop dusters are seen all over the farmland of America.  I suspect the pilots love their jobs since they can fly aerobatics all the time.  Your average airline pilots must envy them.

 My Uncle (father’s older brother) was a pilot for the duration of World War Two and Korea.  He started the first aerial crop dusting operation in Texas after that.  It had to be a great pleasure for him to maneuver like what you see here since he had flown great lumbering B-17’s in Europe and B-29’s in the Pacific theater.   There is a very good story about my Uncle flying Dad around in a piper cub.  Stay tuned.

Mountains are a majestic presence that reduce the grim drudgery of driving to irrelevance.  They rise up out of the plains and grow slowly in the distance until, suddenly the near-infinite horizon has shortened into a winding, ascent through a labyrinth of rocky facades.

The Earth rises around to blot out the sky.  Geology surrounds and penetrates the mood.  But while beauty dominates the view, the meandering highway demands respect – and vigilant attention.  The tranquil excursion across the plains is left far behind and a new paradigm – ever-changing in direction and elevation – absorbs the traveler’s reality.

 Out of thin air, an equally majestic skyscape. 

Cold fronts in Kansas are visible from many miles away, bisecting the sky.  North Texas produces some menacing dark, churning clouds that bring hail and threaten with funnel clouds.  I have some photos of that, but they evade detection.

 This image I titled “Weird Clouds in Nebraska”.

I know my readers are tired of hearing this:  As often happens, the photos do not do justice to the eye-witnessed scene.

A frozen reservoir.  But for that thin blue streak, ice and sky would be indistinguishable.  This is from a “scenic pull-out” and lucky for me, the “no trucks” sign did not appear.

Utah.  The “cap rocks” are harder than the underlying rock layers, which are gradually washed away in the rare showers or blown off by persistent winds to create these copious pillars.

A ridge – from the road it looks like limestone –  harbors the only trees within the horizon. The phenomenon, when mostly vertical it is called a “dyke” and when horizontal, a “sill”.   I suspect it is also an aquifer that carries water to the surface – hence the trees.

 

A detour in Arizona sent me through this corridor, near Prescott.  This straight-away was one of a very few.  There is an overwhelming abundance of scenic beauty to be seen in the Western half of America.

Salt flats on the edges of the Great Salt Lake (in the distance).  In my few passes of this area, I don’t remember seeing GSL without clouds.  Whether Climate or Coincidence, I can’t say.

On emerging from a tunnel in Western Wyoming.  See how the architect has matched the colors to the landscape.  This is an especially compelling tableau in the glow of the full Moon. The light reflects vividly off the snow as to make a brighter than expected nocturnal landscape.

Volcano necks that resist weathering and wind up with sides so steep they won’t hold the snow.   The famous Devil’s Tower (featured in Close Encounters of the Third Kind) is found in Wyoming.  Alas, it is off the major truck routes.

 Hasta Luego,

Steve

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