On the way to Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado, I found myself on this long, straight, empty road. I love these dead straight roads with nobody on them — they really epitomise the rural USA.

As there was nobody around, I stopped the car in the middle of the road, and took a photo. I used my 70–300mm lens to compress the foreground with the distant mountains, and a narrow depth of field to blur the nearby lines on the road. A low viewpoint captured the mirage effect from the hot pavement, as well as the heat haze.