Monday Meanderings - 9.11.2017

When Barb and I fly, our preferred seating arrangement is aisle seats - across from each other. This sometimes confuses helpful attendants, who want to find us seats together, but we assure them that we like our arrangement, thank you.

But a few weeks ago, on a flight from Fresno to Denver, there were some open rows (unusual these days) and the visibility was good, so I slid over to a window seat for a change and watched the landscape pass below me.

On Google Earth you can see what I saw out the plane window, and that's a whole lot of nothing. About 875 miles of nothing, as the crow - or airliner - flies. Fresno is located in the Central Valley of California, on the eastern side of the state, only about 150 miles from the Nevada border. Only problem is, the Sierra Nevada mountain range and a string of Eco-sensitive national forests effectively limits travel in that direction. Not to mention Death Valley.

But that area fairly teems with civilization compared to the desolation that begins almost exactly with Nevada's western border and (following our route) continues on for another 200 miles to the Utah border. The 350 miles needed to cross Utah is not much better, at least not in the southern part of the state that we crossed. Not until you get to Colorado - and again, the change is almost exactly measured from the border - does the landscape show any real signs of civilization.

There are only two major highways in Nevada; IH75 from Los Angeles that crosses the Mojave Desert and passes through Las Vegas, exiting the state to the east at St George, Utah, and IH80, which makes a big northern arc from Sacramento through Reno to Salt Lake City.

Three quarters of the state's 3 million citizens live in Clark County, home to Las Vegas. Another half-million live on the northwestern border in the Reno area. That leaves a big swath in the middle of the state that is virtually empty. Of the 18 counties in Nevada, half have a population density percentage of less than 2 people per square mile.

Utah is more of the same. Although they have a whopping 110,000 more people than Nevada does, almost everybody lives in the Salt Lake area. Here's a map.

Outside of St George, way down in the bottom left corner, there's nobody home in the part of the state we crossed. Actually, there's no home for anybody to be in.

About the only conclusion I can draw from all this is that I'll stick with my aisle seat. Nothing to see out there.