Day 9

I swear, I don't know that I ever truly appreciated how beautiful the United States is. Fields of sunflowers, mountains on the horizons, jagged peaks of Colorado, unbelievable and impossible terrain, and now Wyoming. It's desolate, it's empty, it's no good for radio or cell phone reception - but my God, it's beautiful.

I'm not sure if you'd call these mountains, or mesas. They're huge and rocky and cover the entire landscape, seeming like they tried to reach for the sky, but at some point gave up and rested, leaving their tops flat and wide instead of peaked. The highway curves over them, between them, sometimes straight through them. At some point the builders lost any awe for the rock and blasted through.

At points there are trees, with little villages nestled within, but mostly it's scrub. Scrub in every conceivable color; red and green and yellow and purple and brown.

The desolation itself is beautiful. I've heard some groups rage against the blasting of rocks and the extensive mining done here, but the truth is, most of it is empty and undisturbed. So much unpopulated, pristine space. But it's unforgiving. Who could live here anyway? Who could survive?

It seems like we're making no progress through time or space. We're getting close to Rawlins, which is our halfway point and where we're staying tonight, but there's no change in the world around us to indicate we've moved at all. So much rock. So barren.