FrankHartzell.com

Our cross-country trip, made almost entirely on small highways, (not the Interstates) has been a wonderfully lonely trip back in time.
We started on Highway 20, which we took across California. After a brief jaunt on Interstate 80, we drove US-95 the length of Nevada. It was so empty of humanity, or much other life.
It was a trip back in time, as was our subsequent trips on Route 66 and other highways. We drove through much of New Mexico today on Highway 54, ending up in Texas.
Mom first made the Route 66 trip in 1942, with her high school friends. Mom and Dad came to California by some of these roads, also pre-Interstate 80. I did it in the 1980s and 90s several times.
There is far less traffic than 1998 on the same roads and rural settlement has lessened, which is the opposite of what I expected. The dying small towns are now dead in many places. Every homestead along 95 we saw was abandoned. Several towns were new, true ghost towns. Nobody is left.
Army bases are the bulk of the activity. The area has gone back to the way it was when mom first came in 1942 and in some places, very old towns are much less than then, or so it seems.
Why there is less traffic, so many miles of empty horizons, it is hard to say. It’s peaceful, but gas stations are also gone in some places, and we nearly ran out.

I pose here in front of another dying way of life, the newspaper. This was a place where a little man with linotype put out a paper, it appears. Newspapers are now phantom produced for towns like this (and much larger) by somebody who may have never been to the community, I know having been that editor myself.

The open West features fierce and tiny thunderstorms that you can see coming for miles, big rainbows, big skies and great colors, especially these Arizona reds.