road trippin

In my travels last week, I drove nearly 900 miles. Most of the driving was on Interstate 70, a well-engineered four-lane highway (and then some, closer to Denver). I fueled up on bubble gum and coffee and once I set the cruise control, did not tap the brakes for hours. The radio options out on the plains are interesting: all I found were turn-or-burn preachers, the ag report, or country music stations. It was good thinking time.
Tumbleweeds blew across the highway, rolling, hesitating, then sweeping on. The sky seemed bigger, without the Northwest's abundance of hills and mountains and trees. Another good bit of driving I did over county highways, well-maintained and nearly empty of traffic other than farm trucks and other beefy vehicles. I took my time, in no hurry and enjoying time with my grandmother and the late fall sunshine.
Streets near where my aunt and uncle live seemed unusually wide--were they designed for storm runoff? Bigger vehicles? But, there were hardly any cars!

On a brisk morning run I came across a flattened tumbleweed and snapped a photo for a possible future tattoo.