From the South

US Highway 60, between Richmond and Appomattox, Virginia.

Slight, compared to the gargantuan avenues that are the major interstates, US Highway 60 runs approximately East-West through eastern Virginia. Constricted mostly to two lanes, it has the feel of a suburban road, and at times does cut through small towns, or finds pretty wooden homes along its length. Sporadically, small shops appear, offering groceries and crafts, or liquor and ammo. As American roads go, it is humble. A small, bifurcated black line disappearing into the horizon.
At varying intervals, the landscape either side will be fields, mainly for horses, or will be the luscious forests that characterise the states in this latitude: Tennessee, Kentucky, the Carolinas, as far south as Alabama and north into Pennsylvania and New York. With very little groundcover to obscure them, the stark black-mould trunks of the trees contrast against the autumn palette of their foliage. The colours are turning for Fall. It is a sea of ambers, reds, yellows, with some determined evergreens accenting the spread of warm colours. As the car passes along this road it stirs up fallen leaves, creating a brief golden snowfall. Roadkill is common, and is jarring against the organic beauty of the landscape that unfolds in front. The crisp Fall morning lends a clarity to the light of the day. Aesthetically, everything is exactly as it should be. It is hard to reconcile the bloodshed of 150 years ago.