Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2011 12:48:40 GMT -5
One of the things that seems most difficult for people from other countries to grasp is the vastness of the American West. I shot this last fall near the City of Rocks in south central Idaho. If you started walking in a straight line from this point, going toward the grove of trees, it's about 150 miles of mostly desolationt to Salt lake City, Utah. The mountains in the distance are about 20 miles away. And if you continue walking in a straight line from SLC, you won't encounter a town of more than a few thousand people until you are well into Texas--nearly a thousand miles away. It's not just people from other countries that have a problem with the distances. Folks from the U.S. East Coast often can't handle it either. I've had someone in Boston tell me they once went "Out West" -- to Pittsburgh!!. That's about 1,800 miles from the City of Rocks. When we were in Europe a few years ago one of the most fascinating things for us was how a day's drive could take you through portions of several countries. Of course the West's distances pale in comparison to somewhere like Siberia--but it's still a rather large region. W.
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Post by nikkortorokkor on Jan 28, 2011 13:44:17 GMT -5
Wayne,
oddly, being in Utah, Idaho and Wyoming made me the most homesick I'd been for my native New Zealand. Familiar (vast landscapes and lack of people) yet strange.
Your photo brings back those memories and captures the feel of that part of Idaho well.
Luckily, my travels in the West (including a Greyhound trip from LA to SLC) were preceded by a stint working in the Australian Outback (or on the edge of it) so doing big distances was in my repertoire. Truly seeing the West (like the Outback) is,I think, the task of a lifetime.
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photax
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Post by photax on Jan 28, 2011 14:30:02 GMT -5
Wayne,
Your picture really shows the vastness of the land. I once travelled through the Mohave desert by bus. You might have visited five different countries in Europe at the same time.
MIK
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daveh
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Post by daveh on Jan 28, 2011 15:13:04 GMT -5
I've only been to Florida, so I haven't the vastness of your West. Canada is pretty vast too - but I haven't been there either. Nor indeed Siberia, though we do have salt mines in common with there.
Lovely photo. More please.
Dave.
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Post by Randy on Jan 28, 2011 15:45:13 GMT -5
I used to drive truck over the road, and one of the most exasperatiing things about the job is being able to see where you are going hours before you get there. To me it was the true meaning of White Line Fever.
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daveh
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Post by daveh on Jan 28, 2011 16:31:47 GMT -5
Randy, I can understand what you mean. Some French roads are quite straight, but at least they are normally over undulating terrain. British roads tend to go round people fields and so are full of bends, or have high banks: often one can not see more than a few yards ahead. There has to be a happy medium somewhere.
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jan 28, 2011 19:46:51 GMT -5
Dave:
Your comment on roads brings to mind the opening lines of a poem by G. K. Chesterton:
Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode, The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
Most English country roads developed from the tracks used by farm carts and other horse-drawn traffic so, naturally, they went round farmers' fields rather than cut straight through them.
Today's motorways, planned on a national basis, are very different, but though many people find them boring, they are far from straight, at least they aren't straight for very long.
You may not notice this when you drive along them, never having to consult a map because you've got an electronic gizmo in the car with audio that warns you well in advance where to turn off, because the bends are very large radius.
But if you look at the map you'll realise just how much the average motorway wiggles as it makes its way across our tightly compact little island around towns and around terrain that would be too expensive to cut through.
The railway network, which got there first, also caused a lot of headaches in motorway route planning.
PeterW
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2011 20:37:30 GMT -5
Randy:
It could have been worse. When the Pioneers were crossing the West in the ox-drawn wagons, out in Wyoming they sometimes could see ahead to a point they would not reach for three days!
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Post by Randy on Jan 28, 2011 20:41:25 GMT -5
Before pollution.
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daveh
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Post by daveh on Jan 28, 2011 21:37:48 GMT -5
Is there really pollution? Our air reached its worst up to the 1950s with the old "pea soupers". Since then things have steadily improved.
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Post by olroy2044 on Jan 30, 2011 1:16:27 GMT -5
The American West also contains some very rugged country, still heavily forested and beautiful. Here is a shot of Butte Creek Canyon, taken from a scenic overlook less than 15 minutes from my residence. California is a land of contrasts. Heavily urbanized metropolitan areas, such as the Los Angeles Basin, and the San Francisco Bay Area, wide open deserts to the south, mountainous timberland in the north, and hundreds and hundreds of miles of coastline. Searing summertime heat, to subzero cold in the mountains in the winter. Roy
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photax
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Post by photax on Jan 30, 2011 2:52:07 GMT -5
Roy, I visited California in the early 1990`s and I have to say it`s a beautiful country with many fascinating landscapes and contrasts . MIK
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mickeyobe
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Post by mickeyobe on Jan 30, 2011 5:29:51 GMT -5
Roy,
I have been to California several times to visit relatives. It has, indeed, the most amazingly varied landscape imaginable.
From barren, arid Badwater in Death Valley to lush vineyards and orchards, from large farms and the incredibly fecund Napa Valley to rugged snow capped mountains, from an impossibly varied coastline to huge urban centres, it is almost unbelievable and yet so very appealing.
One may ski in the morning and go swimming after dinner. Then visit the amazing Los Angeles Arboretum or one of the many interesting old missions and have supper at a winery.
Mickey
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daveh
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Post by daveh on Jan 30, 2011 5:31:17 GMT -5
Does California have the biggest variation of all the states? I would imagine so: I can't think of another that would have a greater variation.
Some friends went a few years back and rented a motorhome. In the manifest it said they were allowed to go anywhere in the USA except for Death valley. I presume they had had too many breakdowns there.
Roy, I wonder how many rattlers there are hidden in that photo. I can just imagine the difficulties for the first settlers trying to find their way across. The Native Americans, though, would presumably have known the land like the back of their hands.
The scale of the scenery in the USA and Canada is something we don't get in Britain to any extent. There is something to be said for each.
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Doug T.
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Post by Doug T. on Jan 30, 2011 16:31:14 GMT -5
Hi All! I remember when I was stationed at Fort Bliss in El Paso ,Texas. Sometimes we'd take a road trip to Alamagordo or Cloudcroft, New Mexico. Hours and hours driving in a straight line across the desert. I loved it. Doug
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