This is a continuation of photographs of rural relics I encountered in a spring of 2025 road trip through middle America.
Didn’t I always shelter you from the rain and the cold? Wasn’t I always here, when you returned from a hard days’ work?
More relics are down the road,
Ken
More photos taken in rural America, during an early June 2025 roadtrip.
My first inclination was to call this “Puddle House” for an obvious reason. I had to shoot this old, abandoned house from a fence line near the roadway with a big zoom to get the close up image.
More relics are just down the road,
Ken
This post is a continuation of photographs of relics I encountered during my June, 2025 trip to and from Badlands National Park, South Dakota.
This old house in a small rural town has so much lean that it appears to be relishing its status with a “swagger”. It was raining lightly, when I stopped to photograph here, so I moved around as expeditiously as I could, while capturing these images. Weeks later, when I got around to processing these images, I at first thought that my lens had distorted this old house, since I did not recall noting this much lean in real time. After examing multiple images, I had to conclude that the lean was not exaggerated by my camera.
The concrete pad out front with the water hydrant, makes me think this could have been a business site, maybe an old service station?
Across the street from “Swagger”, is this old boarded up house with a metal roof that seems to be in much better condition than the rest of the house. Maybe this place has not been abandoned for too many years.
There were a number of other abandoned homes and other old structures in the same neighborhood. “Made in the Shade” house seems to be relaxing in the shade of a tree, retired after a long life of sheltering others.
“Not as Neat as I Once Was” is done with the days of neat and orderly, with more important things to contemplate in its old age.
This old home has multiple outdoor laundry facilities.
“Gravity Wins” is the likely future for the abandoned structures in this post.
More Relic to come,
Ken
On my way to and from Badlands National Park in early June 2025, I drove through many small towns and rural areas between Texas and South Dakota. I always keep my eyes open for photographic opportunities to break up the long drives. One of my favorite targets for such are old, rural structures, especially those that appear to have been abandoned. This post will feature some of those photographs from this trip.
I spotted this magnificent old house just a few miles before my first ovenight stop over in Kansas. It sits well back from the roadway in an open field. I shot from a fence line near the roadway with my 24-70mm, then used my 80-400mm to get a closer view of the house.
The following day, not long after leaving my overnight area, I spotted more intriguing structures, which required some minor rerouting to get close enough to shoot.
This stone house appears to be in fairly good condition, but seems to be abandoned. It is not far from a dirt road, but there is no indication of any roadway access to this structure.
I had to walk a considerable distance on a muddy, dirt road in a drizzling rain to get close enough to shoot this old one and even then I had to stop at a fence line and photograph from a distance. I had only brought my 24-70mm lens mounted on my D850 and wished I had put on my 80-400mm, when I had to stop at that fenceline.
There was another, smaller structure, in similar condition, down the hill from the house, but I was too far away to get a good shot of that with my 24-70mm.
I would have liked to have gotten closer, but I did not want to cross that fenceline and trespass, since that fence was obviously there to keep people out. There was no evidence of graffiti, which I suspect is an indication of the lack of easy access from the local roadways and the remote rural location of this structure.
Stay tuned for more Rural Relics,
Ken
Don’t be here, when the sun goes down tonight.
Our neighbors here in the backwoods of Indiana are friendly, but I don’t know about their dog.
Happy Halloween and stay safe,
Ken
I found this old, abandoned house just a short distance from the cabin in which we were staying in the fall of 2022.
I returned this fall (2023) to photograph it again. The fall leaves had mostly fallen the year before, when I found it. This year the fall color was good and not yet peak.
The house is little changed since 2022, but the weeds around it were taller and thicker, as if the lot is more neglected now.
More Indiana Fall to come,
Ken
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.
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.
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).
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.
Thanks for following,
Ken
To be continued,
Ken
More photos of abandoned houses in Cuervo, New Mexico, taken as I was passing through, returning from another landscape photography destination.
To be continued,
Ken
Cholla cacti converts this abandoned washing machine into a planter. This image was chosen by Flickr for its Explore page.
To be continued,
Ken
