It's not until you take the notion to drive across this country that you really start to get a feel for just how goddamn big it is. The miles roll by and the odometer starts to get dizzy but the land just keeps going on and on and on. Out the window, the landscape is constantly changing and so are the accents but somehow it's all just one big basket case of a country.
In October of 2023 we spent a couple weeks doing just that, headed out to New Mexico in search of the American Dream. Wandered through towns big and small and all the spaces between, but the dream was never seen.
Just relics and remnants, traces of it's passing. Never could quite tell where it went, just that it wasn't there anymore.
It was interesting though, you could see the layering of peoples and cultures in much the same way as the rock and sediment of the landscapes you were passing through. Depending on how things had been shaken up in the past determined what was standing out now.
There's some ominous clouds on the horizon around here these days but before long they'll just be another level in the layer cake of history.
With such a seemingly endless string of different people, places, and landscapes it makes you wonder, what makes a country a country?