Day 2: PA-OH-IN

Driving through Ohio and Indiana was exactly what I predicted.

imagine endless miles of this and other flat, wide open spaces, with the occasional silo/tractor/corporate farm building dotting the blanket of crops. The icing on this somewhat bland and surprisingly uninspiring cake is random fields of yellow flowers. Surrounded by green, the yellow jumps out. Very beautiful.

On interstate 90 in Ohio, I looked up to see a giant gray/black plume of smoke, and I grabbed my camera, thinking it was pollution, ready to send an email to my enviro-crazed friends back at home/UNH to rant and rave about how nasty it was. Instead of a smokestack, though, the plume was coming from an exploded truck on the highway in front of me. It was about a half mile ahead, and just at the moment that I realized it was on the highway, traffic ahead came to a dead halt, and didn't move for an hour. It seemed strange to experience this for a second time.... I was about a half mile behind the oil tanker that crashed and exploded on Rt 7 in Ridgefield a few years back. And it turned out that this crash was also an oil tanker..... I must be bad luck for those poor drivers. I doubt this guy survived... the cab of the truck (when we finally drove past it), was absolutely gone.... scrap metal was all that remained. Very sad.

I arrived in the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore at around 6:30PM, set up my tent in the daylight (which was much nicer than setting it up in pitch-black night), and then headed down to the beach to photograph the sunset... (just wait!) A local guy who was sitting on the beach started talking to me, and he was very nice, even offering me dinner (don't worry Mom, I said my "boyfriend and I" had already eaten - I made up a fake boyfriend so the guy wouldn't think I was doing the trip alone :) ). I promise that these photos have not been touched in photoshop or any other photo editing program... this was the color (actually it was more intense, but the camera can only pick up so much...)

This morning when I woke up I went and did a 5 mile hike through marsh, bog, forest, and dunes in this national park. Very interesting hike... When I got to the dunes it was so beautiful, but then I looked to my left and there were 4 giant smokestacks... Very strange dichotomy of natural beauty and ugly industrial development.

I will head to Chicago tonight, Iowa tomorrow, and then South Dakota and Badlands National Park on Friday :D

Email if you are interested in more pictures. I have thousands (as those of you who know me can imagine!)

paz y amor