Cross in the Desert

While traveling in southern Arizona I came upon an old cemetery out in the middle of nowhere.  It was strange to me that a cemetery existed where there were no towns around.  I drove up the washed out gravel road to the entrance gate and spent an hour walking around and photographing the location.  It was apparent that these were old and simple grave sites.  Some of the sites had been attended to with faded artificial flowers and a few keepsakes spread around on the headstones.  This is rugged and barren land that is hard to support life.  I wondered what these early pioneers did to survive in such an arid place.  Most likely there were mining operations with a town in the area an one time.  The West is full of old an abandon mining towns, some still standing an other completely gone except for a few rusted out pieces of equipment laying around.  I made this photograph on an extremely hot July day.  There were numerous thunderstorms moving through the area and I could see them coming for miles away.