1.   During the Cold War, they checked a new weapon design by conducting a half dozen or so large test explosions under a desolate patch of Nevada desert.

2.   It was a far-fetched notion, to sprout technology like corn from a desolate patch of pine trees and overgrown fields.

3.   Somewhere on the western side of the lake, we stopped by a desolate patch of green, cast our fishing pole and watched the world go by.

4.   The perpetual violence that frequently engulfs this desolate patch of land in the Pyandzh River gorge is slowly destroying whatever the looters have left behind.

5.   The epicenter was just a few miles south of Ludlow in a desolate mining patch called Hector.