Landscape Painting: Clear Lake, Utah; A Union Pacific Freight Train; and a US Highway 50 Crossroad

Freight Train, Millard County, Utah
oil on canvas
8 5/16 x 12 3/4 inches

A Union Pacific freight train rolls through Clear Lake.  These days it is just a gravel road crossing a highway.  Brittle hedges define rectangular shaped spaces of past habitation.  The structures are gone; tin cans, broken glass, concrete shale and nails are the visual remains of decay.  A local museum may display a book or two on the place, but no historical marker describes the lives of the vanished inhabitants.

The road could be a short cut out to US Highway 50 if not for dusty vibrations and scrapes with sage on turns and straight-aways in grey ruts of mud.  I know from experience.  Acceleration and luck are the only things that kept me from being stuck out in a sea of sage a long way away from any house or highway.