Traveling Roadside America, Color

Roadside America: As we travel through our busy lives we are often unaware of the history of the landscape that surrounds us. We speed along interstate highways that avoid communities; we fly across the country oblivious to the land, people and their places below.

Over time, human-built structures breakdown as communities change. They are abandoned and neglected.  Deterioration occurs as nature works slowly and silently to reclaim her place in the landscape.  However, the evidence of those past human endeavors melds with the natural elements creating its’ own beauty – a mystical reminder that the past persists, even just as relics of time gone by.

These reminders of the past are beacons to the endeavors and lives of people; previous generations who transformed the landscape to build a life. The backroads of America retain instances of human efforts to tame the land, make a living and build communities.  These reminders along today’s empty roadsides are opportunities to pause, reflect and wonder about the people who settled once empty lands. The stories and memories are gone. The only evidence is left in the landscape. There are no ghosts to tell us more.

It begs the question: when today’s human landscape crumbles, what will remain of our presence among the landscapes.  What palette will we leave behind?