OREM -- There are 225,627 miles on the odometer of Lynn Sessions' 1993 Ford Explorer. He racked up most of them while photographing Utah towns and cities from Lewiston to St. George and everywhere in between.

For seven years, the self-proclaimed "frustrated photographer" from Orem has been crisscrossing the state with his digital camera and an unwavering determination to snap every town and city in Utah, no matter the size, and post the pictures on his Web site, http://www.dreambreeze.com.

Recently the shutter closed on his last subjects. On March 12, with the additions of Etna and Grouse Creek, the project was finished. Total towns and cities: 466.

"Well, this is it -- this is the last place in Utah," Sessions said before photographing the Grouse Creek supply store on the town's main (and only) paved road.

"It kind of feels like the last place in Utah, too," he added.

The idea for the art project came to Sessions while hiking in southern Utah with his brother, David. Sessions had taken numerous photos of canyons and natural arches when he decided to start shooting the post offices, temples, businesses and dwellings of the communities he passed on his way to the trails.

"Each city and town has a unique personality and feel that I want to photograph," he said. "The city's personality can usually be found close by downtown."

When not shooting towns, Sessions is a customer-support technician at Altiris, a software-development company in Lindon.

"That's how I pay for my photography and trips," he said.

The first place Sessions shot in 1998 was the ghost town of Cisco, off Interstate 70 between Green River and the Colorado state line. The picture is of a dilapidated post office with faded whitewash and a broken picket fence barely standing on each side of the tiny building.

"They've got their one ZIP code and there are only about three trailers there," Sessions said.

Though his journey hasn't been constant, he's spent most weekends for half a decade on the road traveling from big to small city and back again.

"Everybody in Utah has been someplace, but has someone been to every place in Utah?" he asked.

Susan Whetstone, photography curator for the Utah State Historical Society, said Sessions' photo collection is impressive.

"I think they definitely have an historical value," she said. "He chose a nice mix of churches, homes and panoramas. . . . There were a lot of towns I didn't know existed. It was nice to see those."

According to U.S. census information posted on Sessions' Web site, Utah officially claimed 235 towns and cities in 2000. In addition to those, Sessions included photos of ghost towns, small communities and even railroad stations listed on topographical maps he uses.

"If there was at least one building standing, I'd take a picture of it," he said.

Vernal, Sessions said, was the prettiest place to shoot because Main Street was lined with flower-potted petunias.

The most difficult town to get to was Rainbow, on a Navajo reservation near the Utah and Arizona border.

"It was all dirt road," he said.

The community of Dugway had to be shot through a distant fence because of its proximity to Michael Air Force Base and the Dugway Proving Ground military facility. Sessions was unable to acquire a security pass to get in.

"Clear Creek in Carbon County is one of those places you'd love to have a cabin," Sessions said, calling it one of Utah's best-kept secrets.

Grouse Creek, one of his last subjects, is a town of about 80 residents in the northwest corner of Utah in Box Elder County, about eight miles from the Nevada border and 18 miles from the Idaho border. Besides the store, the farming community of Grouse Creek also boasts a post office, elementary school and an LDS wardhouse. Some of the homes still have old outhouses in the back yards.

Earlier in the day, Sessions visited the farming town of Etna about three miles south of Grouse Creek. The population appeared to be five households, including Cedar Hot Springs, "Home of the Double Cone Ranch," the sign read.

A third destination that day, Lucin, about 26 miles south of Grouse Creek, had been abandoned by its last resident in the early 1990s, according to a bullet-riddled sign. Lucin had last been a retirement community. All that was left were several dozen lazy black and brown cows, some railroad tracks, two wrecked storage rooms built into the side of small hills and several barely recognizable building foundations. Oh, and several of the 53 species of songbird that migrate each year to the area, which is now managed for wildlife.

Sessions' Web site has been on the Internet for more than two years and listed 7,222 hits as of Wednesday. Sessions said he receives hundreds of e-mails a year about his site and its genealogy link.

"They say, 'Oh, I used to live there' or 'My family grew up there,' " Sessions said.

Because of his extensive travels, Sessions said he truly knows how large and unique Utah really is.

"I don't think there's another place in the entire world as geologically diverse as Utah," he said.

Now that he's visited every town in Utah, what next?

"I'll have to move to another state," he joked.

jbergreen@sltrib.com