The warm colors of this Oklahoma sunset hide the cool air of a winters day as the wind cuts cross the open landscape. As the sun dips below the horizon even the gathering darkness can’t hide the characteristic red dirt exposed by the occasional trucks and car that travel this one of many rural Oklahoma roads.
Oklahoma sunset – The long red-dirt road to Midway Station
As an Englishman who married into an Oklahoman family, the Oklahoma landscape remains a fabled place of cowboys and ranches from childhood watching those old TV shows like the Adventures of Roy Rogers and Trigger. This is never truer than when we venture out into the countryside and head off down the red dirt trails. In this case we were spending time on a family property, Midway Station.
Midway Station lies between the towns of Crescent and Mulhall in Logan county, Oklahoma. It’s a property that had been in wife’s family since the 1930’s, in an area where the family has been since the land run in 1889. In its day the station was a focal point of the rural community acting as a small holding/grocery store/automobile shop (garage). Operated by wife’s grandparents Lorne and Alice Stewart, it operated between 1939 through to the 1970’s. Midway Station is now a quiet residential property. These central plains landscapes are wide and exposed. There are woods and hedges but the wind keeps them low and sparse. By reputation this land has been hard to work and it takes a special kind of person to thrive here. Occasionally the landscape is scoured by tornadoes which have hit local towns several times over the years. Still, for the most part the views are beautiful and often seem to go on forever.
Photographic Details
This image was taken on a Pentax K-r and composed of an HDR composite of three exposures using Photomatix and Corel Photopaint.