A good way to enjoy fall color in Indiana is via a simple drive along the tree lined roadways, especially the backroads, where there are few houses or commercial facilities to spoil the views. The roads make good leading lines, but I do worry about having too much road in the images, since the most interesting subject is not the roadway.
Indiana Backroad Forest 1, October 24, 2023
It is not always possible to find a safe place to pull over off of the roadways, but where possible, one can get fall forest images right beside the road.
Indiana Backroad Forest 2, October 24, 2023Indiana Backroad Forest 3, October 24, 2023
Leaning House 1, October 24, 2023 Bean Blossom Indiana
I first photographed this small, old, abandoned, leaning house in the fall of 2022. It is just off of the highway running through Bean Blossom and Morgantown, Indiana. My wife and I drove past it a number of times this fall (2023) and I stopped once to photograph it, while the trees still retained most of their fall foliage.
There are other homes and buildings nearby this house, which I tried to keep as much out of the photos as possible. That limited how I could compose these images.
Leaning House 2, October 24, 2023 Bean Blossom IndianaLeaning House 3, October 24, 2023 Bean Blossom Indiana
As I returned across the highway to my vehicle, a woman leaving the parking lot stopped to tell me that there had been more old structures where the parking lot and a store were now located. All those had been taken down to put in the store and parking lot. I wish I had been around to photograph those now missing structures.
As has become a tradition, my wife and I spent a couple of weeks in Indiana in the fall of 2023. We stay in a cabin just a short distance outside of Brown County State Park, a popular park for fall leaf peepers.
I visited the park. on a number of our days in the vicinity, for photography and even when traveling to another destination, we most often took a route through the park just to enjoy the beautiful fall color in the park.
Brown County State Park 1, October 24, 2023BCSP 2, October 24, 2023BCSP 3, October 24, 2023BCSP 4, October 24, 2023BCSP 5, October 24, 2023BCSP 6, October 24, 2023BCSP 7, October 24, 2023
All of the photos in this post were shot at or near one of the overlooks within the park.
We had an interesting encounter at this location. I noted a park visitor on an electric bike and I asked him about his bike. He was kind enough to give me much information about the bike, its features and even how much he paid for it. When my wife joined in the conversation, she discovered that the biker and she had attended the same high school. Even though they attended the school some years apart, they knew some of the same people that were students at that school. Such a small world consequence!
Cuervo Ghost Town 31Cuervo Ghost Town 32Cuervo Ghost Town – OpennessCuervo Ghost Town -Target Object
In rural U.S. it is not unusual to see bullet holes in abandoned objects and road signs. This is perhaps a sign of the U.S. love affair with guns. Shooting at such objects as this abandoned vehicle could put other in danger, since there are still a few people in this area and many vehicles pass through on I-40.
Cuervo Ghost Town – Abandoned Automobile
One can see in the image above an indication of the traffic along I-40 through Cuervo. I usually tried to wait until there was no traffic in the background of my shots, but sometime that required more time than I had the patience for.
Cuervo Ghost Town – Abandoned AutomobileCuervo Ghost Town 32
I made the shot of the kitchen area of this abandoned house through an open window, I think (or doorway, I don’t recall which).
Cuervo Ghost Town – Parting Shot
I made this last shot as I walked back towards my vehicle.
This concludes this series on the mostly abandoned community of Cuervo, New Mexico. More history of this ghost town can be found here.
Cuervo Ghost Town 13Cuervo Ghost Town – Gravitational DistortionCuervo Ghost Town 14Cuervo Ghost Town 15Cuervo Ghost Town 16Cuervo Ghost Town – Cholla Planter
Cholla cacti converts this abandoned washing machine into a planter. This image was chosen by Flickr for its Explore page.
Cuervo Ghost Town 17Cuervo Ghost Town – Even the Trees have Ghosts hereCuervo Ghost Town 18
This is the old church that first drew my attention to Cuervo, New Mexico, as I drove by along I-40, some years ago. This time I took time to stop and photograph portions of this mostly ghost town.
Cuervo Ghost Town ChurchCuervo Ghost Town 8Cuervo Ghost Town 9Cuervo Ghost Town 10Cuervo Ghost Town 11Cuervo Ghost Town Water TankCuervo Ghost Town 12
Cuervo, New Mexico is a small community along interstate I-40 in New Mexico. It is mostly a ghost town, having been established as a railroad stop in 1901, then drying up when the railroad chose another stop in Tucumcari, NM.
I’ve driven this stretch of I-40 past Cuervo numerous times, first making a mental note of this place, when I spotted an old, picturesque church as I drove by at 75mph, thinking that someday I might want to stop in to photograph that old church.
I had spent the night near Gallup, NM, waking up to a snow covered vehicle and campground with temperature in the low 20s. I drove through intermittent snow and rain that heavily overcast morning. I figured the overcast sky would create the perfect environment for photographing in Cuervo, so I determined to take time to stop here today. Atlas, as I drove along not paying attention to where I was, I drove past the only east bound exit for Cuervo. I had to drive 7 or 8 miles to the next exit, make a U-turn and backtrack to Cuervo. By the time I got back to Cuervo, most of the overcast had cleared and it was mostly bright and sunny. But I was here and decided to walk around the small town, photographing the abandoned homes, anyway.
Cuervo Ghost Town 1Cuervo Ghost Town 2Cuervo Ghost Town 3Cuervo Ghost Town 4Cuervo Ghost Town 5Cuervo Ghost Town 6 – Cali-RoseCuervo Ghost Town 7Cuervo Ghost Town 8 – The Church
The old church is still somewhat maintained, at least. The roof appears to be relatively new.
Sunset light fades away on the peaks. I’m so grateful for the natural lines and textures in the amazing geology and natural sculpture here, without which the photographs would not be nearly so interesting.
Peak Gold 2
With a cache of fallen rocks in the eroded portion below the peak.
Getting the Shot
I could have yelled at this photographer for intruding into my composition, but I think he adds to the theme of photographing the geology here, as well as giving a human scale for reference.
Regular followers of this blog might recall that in an earlier post about this final sunset shoot I made a statement about thinking that there must be a better composition in the area where I made an early shot before sunset. Well, there was. I came back to that area, as the sun was very low in the sky, where I shot some of the images above. As I moved around the area, I found rocks that made very interesting foreground objects. These last three images are my best (I think) images from that location.
The Cast 1
The rocks of Valley of Fire are the stars of this series, so it seem appropriate to name these last photos for those rocks.
The Cast 2The Cast – Final Bow
Thanks for following this long series of blogs with photos from Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada.
