I suppose many would find it stark, barren and downright ugly, but I do not. Those open spaces edged by the first plateau level's cliffs speak to me in a special way. Maybe in a past life I roamed there as a Native American centuries ago. At any rate, it feels very familiar and comforting to me. I was playing some of my favorite road trip music--a CD by Cusco, and two more called Cries from the Earth and Ancient Voices. The music seems made for this scenery. Still with a touch of melancholy from my morning's errand I drove along a near deserted old two lane road and finally stopped to get a few shots of lovely lonesome.
While I was doing that I heard a train approaching at my back, the tracks running perhaps a quarter of a mile off the road. I snapped a shot of the container unit freight and then chased it along the road, finally getting ahead enough to catch it coming in to Seligman. That's an old rail town cut off when they made I-40 to replace Old 66 and not too much there now. I then went on a little farther toward Ashfork where the old highway finally merges back to I-40 and got a couple more photos of the same train. One I especially liked, just past the Crookton Overpass, where the old highway crosses the double tracks, a site well known to rail fans for photo ops. Ashfork, BTW, is known as the home of the beautiful Coconino red and pink flagstone used in much Arizona building and even exported to other places. It is quite unique.
Here are a few of the shots I took. You may not see in them what I do but they are special and powerful to me! They represent part of my spirit's home.
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| BNSF container unit train just east of Crookton Overpass |
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A lovely lonesome Arizona ladscape |
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| School house in Valentine, AZ A semi ghost town on Old 66 |
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