The Why-Not Travel Store is in Why, Arizona. It’s the last stop before Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, and not too far from the Mexican border. And, yes, you do ask yourself, “Why is there a town here?” The Travel Store includes a gas station and a really great general store full of kitschy memorabilia, desert necessities, and snacks. I bought a Why, Arizona souvenir coffee mug. It was manufactured in China, of course.

The RVs gassing up and poised for travel captured the outpost spirit of the place. I took three frames with a pocket camera and spliced them in Photoshop™. There were no problems in splicing. I lightened the shadows by 25%. A 1900 pixel-wide version of the image is here. After splicing, the original was about 7500 × 2700 pixels.

An unusual desert rainstorm left a reflecting pool, er, puddle, and the expanse of puffy clouds above evokes the desert Southwest nearly as much as does cactus.

Three horizontal frames make a wide panorama. The cylindrical projection option in Photoshop Photomerge™ usually produces the least objectionable distortion for very wide panoramas, and that’s what I used for this image. Note that the straight lines in the roof over the pumps and the pavement seams are warped into curves. That’s preferable to having large stretched areas in a perspective projection.

If you make a large print from a cylindrical projection, bend the print into a circular arc, and put your eyes near the center of the arc, you get a miniature virtual reality theater. The distortion disappears and and it is like being in the scene with a wrap-around view.

Oh, speaking of gassing up, if you find yourself traveling in this part of the country, you might consider having lunch in Ajo, the town before Why. Ajo means garlic, but the town is named for lily-like flower in the garlic family, not a lunch ingredient. There is one restaurant in Why, but that really gets you asking why?