V is for...

Vast.

As in the desert around post. It's a good 35+ miles up to post from the interstate and the closest tiny town ("town," mind you, not "city"). You really get a good idea of how empty the area is on that drive up from town. Just miles and miles of brown dirt and brown shrubs, as far as the eye can see. It's rather surreal looking on this road during the summer, since you get a lot of heat-haze making the 20+ mile stretch (shown below) just shimmer like mad. The picture above is one of my own, and the one below is a sign that used to be on the one road to post, but was taken down because it kept getting stolen. Unfortunately, I can't give credit to whomever took that picture, but I really like it.

I remember talking with an uncle before I moved out here. He was saying that Southwest US folk who move east are always amazed at the greenness and how closed in it is in the eastern US, almost a form of claustrophobia - trees and buildings blocking the view. He was adding that we'd probably be suffering from a reverse form of it, moving out and seeing for miles. I've been thinking a lot about that since moving out here, because you really do see quite a distance, and there really is just nothing for miles around here. I'm finding I am bothered by the view, but it's the fact that it's so dead looking, not that it's empty. If these hills and valleys were simply green grass, they'd be much more refreshing than they are now. I love looking across the ocean, and that's a view for miles, and at the farm where Zach's folks live, you can see for a good ways in some of their fields (not miles, but still, quite a distance). Traveling, too, some of the scenic overlooks we've passed (like just recently in Utah and Nevada) you could see miles and miles away, but the valleys were so green and pretty. Somehow, those views are so much more refreshing than the miles of brown here in the CA High Desert. Brown shrubland just isn't the most healing, satisfying view when you just look across tens of miles of it, like around here :\

V is for a lot of other things as well. Particularly, Virginia, where Zach and I each grew up, and Vacation, which we just got back from and which is why I'm running a little behind on my letters here - vacation pictures'll be another post though!