for Richard

This is and isn't a familiar image, or set of images: it's the thank-you card for Richard Miller from his very, very grateful Department on the occasion of his great send-off, celebratory dinner.   I wanted to put something together that reflected his imagination, his vision, his sense of futuristic space (both literally and figuratively) - though of course when speaking I think I forgot to say all that, which was totally intended, even if my memory did jump over it.   So... it had to reflect his travel - hence the EWR station windows - and of course all that he's done for Murray Hall - including the refurbishing of the floor according to a design done by his sister.   But what to put at the end of the corridor?    I'd thought of blue sky... but then yesterday he serendipitously posted to his FB site the fact that he was chasing tumbleweed (I shudder to think what particular aspect of chairing might lurk behind that phrase).    So the Giant Tumbleweed was pressed back into action, with the Sangre de Cristo mountains hovering in the deep blue yonder behind.

It does feel good to be back designing composite images - the first for a long time.   But the next two weeks are going to be posts from the road.   I hope that I'll be able to find somewhere with internet every day - though I have my doubts about the wilds of South Dakota, and indeed various other spots.   So... if there is a gap...do not fret...I am out there; I will have taken the picture; I will have thought about what to write... Tomorrow, first stop somewhere on I-70, traveling west.   It's been so flat out I haven't even thought about whether or not to follow my usual road regime - take a picture each time I stop - which makes for a lot of strange pictures of or from gas stations, with inevitable homage to Stephen Shore (though I totally promise not to take any images of filthy toilets...).