Day Seventy-Seven: Burning Up the Road

I thought I had been burning some rubber this week on my six-state spring break road tour of the midwest, but it's been nothing like this:

A recurring sight along my journey has been the "controlled burn," a way of cleaning up brush - in this case alongside the interstate - that may otherwise be difficult to maintain or may represent a potential fire hazard.

Though the burns are controlled and closely monitored by D.O.T. workers, seeing the ground on fire only feet from your car as you drive by is an unusual (and somewat unnerving) sight. So, after passing a few of these blazes on my trip from Indiana to Kansas today I decided to look for a good way to capture the activity in a photo.

Note: "good way" did not seem to equal "pull over to the side of the interstate to take a picture," nor did it equal "cruise by a smoking fire at 70 mph with the window rolled down to take a picture on the go."

Because of this, I ended up backtracking a few miles on a frontage road where I could pull over and walk as close as I cared to get to the line of fire. You can see the heat of the fire, which leaves behind only ashen black ground as it progresses down the roadway, in the ripples on the back of the semi truck driving by.

Looking for unusual or unique scenes to catch with the camera definitely helps pass the time on long road trips...and I think I caught a little bit of the unusual today as I was burning up the road.