Finally we hit the highway. The type of roads you visualise as being an almost natural aspect of this part of the world.
These are the roads that you dream about. The type of road that is as far as you can get from the bumper to bumper stress of the M25. The type of road that can seriously be described as beautiful.
Driving through western Texas and into New Mexico, we passed through some of the biggest space I've ever seen.
'Space' is the best way I can describe it. The scale of the scenery is just incredible. The roads plow through the endless landscape on a journey that seems to never end. Being used to the small, winding, country roads of England, I found the sheer presence of empty space breathtaking, making up a view of boundless beauty.
The stereotypical image of this desert landscape was reinforced by the punctuating appearances of the long cargo trains. These railroad beasts often ran alongside the road for miles at a time. By the time the last carriage passed us, the first would surely be arriving at the next town.
Not that it would be likely that there would be much going on in the next town. The few one-horse towns we passed through were verging on ghost towns. Boarded up shops, abandoned industrial sights and I swear I even saw a tumbleweed. We were a long way from the nearest Wal-Mart.
For times, we were the only car on the road as far as the eye could see. The straight ribbon of road snaked through the dust for miles in either direction, and we had it all to ourselves.
En route to Lubbock, Texas we had company for a while. The road was flanked on both sides by fields of wind turbines. These grand, imposing figures loomed on the horizon and crept towards the road. Hundreds of the things were spread across the land like alien invaders, but I suppose we were heading towards Roswell, so it might not be too much of a stretch of the imagination.
No comments:
Post a Comment