Rhyolite is the ghost town in Nevada that, as you might've noticed, I extensively photographed. I wanted to just talk about it for a bit, because for some reason, I feel connected with ghost towns.

The town was once near some very profitable gold and silver mines, and, naturally, the town was where those miners and their families lived. The population was around 10,000 at its peak in the 1890's, but it was shortly after that when Nevada mines began to lose funding, and began to financially fail. After years of an economic crisis for Nevada mines, the town's population began to rapidly decrease until it was reduced to about 10 in 1920. Now, it's probably unchanged. Despite the fact that it's a ghost town, there is a small trailer home community just up the hill from the caboose pictured in my gallery. Otherwise, it's a state park.

I don't know why, but somehow, I was feeling like I had a purpose there, in that abandoned, ruined place. I felt like an urban explorer, finding beauty in things that are abandoned and beginning to be taken over by nature. I think the Japanese term for that kind of art is "Wabi-Sabi."

Plus, when the sun set behind the mountains behind the town, the wind REALLY picked up, and it kind of felt like a natural disaster was about to hit. It was almost as if I would be the last person to see the place as it was... but fortunately, nothing was further destroyed.

Gah, rambling. Well, that's how I felt when I was in the ghost town. I had pretty much the time of my life there.

Swords out.