Now, a few miles to the south, a ballpark is rising in the mud and rubble of Coney Island.

Over the last eight years, the miles that vehicles traveled on Interstate highways rose 20 percent, to 2.8 billion.

A few miles to the east the land is rising by almost an inch a year, suggesting that another big blowout is on the way.

But the terrain was uninviting, empty, and featureless; a mile or so ahead, it rose toward the mountains.

Several miles behind another fireball rose out of the refinery complex.

Two miles ahead rose a cloud of dust marking the advancing Rojags.

A few miles beyond the land once again became wild and rose to a region of rolling moors.

For a mile around black crows rose noisily into the air.

Twenty miles to the east, a wall of mountains rose sheer against the sky.

Five miles from the colonial center rises a steel and glass monument to a 20th-century vision.