Ever since I saw the works of the early American color photographers, it has been impossible not to dream about long road trips through the American scenery – accompanied only by a suitcase and a camera.

This project traces a two-week journey in search of the fading promise of the American roadside, on a route that mainly went through New Mexico but also touched on Colorado and Texas. As I had hoped, it was a trip filled with nostalgia, endless sunshine, and deep blue skies. Quirky motels, closed gas stations, and other fragments of the 60s and 70s are still there, waiting to be documented in all their beauty and strangeness.

Where cities tend to overwrite themselves in shorter cycles of renewal, these wide rural landscapes allow structures to remain alive decades after their prime. However, this might exclude certain spots along Route 66, probably reinvented for the passing gaze of tourists.