Along the western portion of the Iowa - Missouri border, it's very apparent that time has managed to pass by without much notice. The increasingly small towns are shells of their former selves, full of abandoned houses and buildings that appear as if they've been untouched for decades. Even if time appears to have stopped, it still takes its toll on everything here, from half-crumbling state highways to downtown buildings slowly disappearing one by one. The reasons for this are fairly simple: no major east-west highway through these parts and the disappearance of the railroads that once spurred settlement and commerce in these places. Such is progress, as they say.

Here are two images from a Sunday afternoon spent exploring this area and enjoying the incredibly gorgeous clouds that filled the sky...