Conway, TX

There is not much left to Conway, Texas.  This Route 66 town was bypassed by the interstate around 1984 but was still in close proximity to it.  That did not help the fortunes of the small town though.  The grain elevator is the last remaining business besides 2 old motels and cafe.  Across the interstate is a Love's Truck Stop where most of the travelers money goes to nowadays.

What makes Conway an interesting stop is the "Bug Farm" adjacent to the old trading post.  The VW Beetles buried face down in the Texas dirt are spray painted by visitors, as is the old 1930's car and the crumbling buildings.

The vintage gas station is left crumbling back to earth and is basically a home for some feral cats.  And a cool place to visit for old car guys like me.  I remember gas stations when they were like this.  Locally owned and lots a character instead of the quick marts that we have now.

 One of the cats that live in the old gas station.

 The gift shop has been abandoned for a long time.

 Some snaps of Route 66 is Adrian, Texas.

 A great old station that is still hanging in there waiting to be restored (above).

  A Phillips 66 station that is seeing a second life (above).

 The Mid-Point Cafe is exactly in between Chicago and Santa Monica, CA. (above)

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McLean, Texas

 McLean, Texas is one of those sleepy panhandle towns that is just hanging on after the interstate passed it by. It left Route 66 as just a main street through town and not a major thoroughfare and as a result businesses started to go under.  Route 66 came through town in 1927 and the boom days started. There were 1500 residents and 59 business in 1940.  The interstate bypassed it in 1984. Now there are around 800 residents.  I went through there on a Wednesday but it could have been just a quiet Sunday morning if I didn't know better.

 Yet the town does have an active preservation society and they are trying to slowly turn things around.  To drive through is to see a glimpse of the past with quite a few old buildings left from the heyday of "66."

 Abandoned gas stations still exist along the route and are surprisingly intact.

I'm not sure who the "Dirt Road Divas" are or were. Hair salon? Ladies poker club? It was empty as was most of the town.

Just get up and move out but leave your old Valiant behind to bake in the sun.

The museum could use a little fixing up I think.  

This little gem was the first Phillips 66 station in the State of Texas and was built in 1928.

The old car dealers building still remains.  I bet a lot of pickups were sold to local ranchers out of this building over the years

Good news though, they still believe in displaying the Ten Commandments publicly right on Route 66!

The Cactus Inn Motel is still in business and locally family owned.

 The Rexall drug store is still in town along with the old historic Avalon Theatre which is being renovated (below).

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Westbound, MO, KS and OK

Hitting the road is one of my favorite things.  I love life on the road seeing America as it really is.  The trip for me is the journey and not the destination.  I plan on doing a few of these over the coming year.  My inaugural trip in the Sprinter was Route 66 with my beagle Ruby.  She is a rescue dog that we adopted in April of this year and this would be her first time on the road.  Luckily she loves to travel also!

 Seeing as I love the southwest I made good interstate time through Illinois and Missouri and hooked up with Route 66 in Joplin and followed that into Kansas where it takes a short spin through that state.  Then down into Oklahoma where I felt like I was finally getting into the west.  At 11:30 that night I was ready to get off the road so I stayed in a truck stop in Big Cabin, OK.  I found a corner tucked in next to the semi's and had lots of grass around for walking Ruby that evening and the next morning.  I ran the generator all night with the roof AC going and I didn't hear a thing until we woke up that next morning at sunrise and went for a walk.  Then on to a full day of driving to get farther west and into the land I love.  Great weather meant easy travel.  Next up is Texas and New Mexico.

 Common view on the interstate.

 Joplin, MO Route 66, no building left but the sign still stands.

 Route 66 in Baxter Springs, Kansas downtown.

 The sun rises as The Chief stands ready at the entrance of The Wood Shed truck stop in

Big Cabin, OK.

Morning at The Wood Shed, Big Cabin, Oklahoma.

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RV Changes

One part of changing the direction of my photography back to what I really love involves vehicles, specifically RV's.

I didn't want to be tied down to retail photography anymore.  No more worrying about keeping hours and all the followup work.  No more working sports games and other peoples schedules into my own.  Just concentrate on the photography that I want to do and when I feel like doing it.  Part of that entails traveling to where I want to go and how I'm going to get there.

Traveling by air is fast.  And a huge hassle.  I don't mind private or corporate flights but I am really tired of the cattle-call of modern-day commercial airline travel.  Trains are out of the question.  Though I think trains are great, this country does not have good options for train travel.  I love driving so that has always been my preferred choice.  And traveling by RV is a great way to go so I can stop when and where I want and always have a place to be for the night when needed.

This past summer I traded off my trusty 'ol Fleetwood Providence motor home.  It was a great unit that served us well through 29 states and a whole bunch of miles.  Truth be told, I still miss it at times.  She measured 40 feet with a Cat C7 turbodiesel, airbrakes, PacBrake, the whole shebang.  With the Chevy Suburban being towed behind it the whole rig was 65 feet long.  She was a blast to drive.  But she was getting a little long in the tooth and things needed to be done.  Looking at my long to-do list for her, and thinking about the small amount of camping we were actually doing I thought it was time to say goodbye.

The problem was, I still liked the idea of having an RV for travel.  But I was thinking about something smaller since we didn't camp much but preferred to vacation at resorts or hotels.  I kept thinking a Sprinter van RV conversion would be a nice way to go for family travel.   And...when I wanted to go on photo trips with just me and the dog I didn't need to have a huge rig.  Preferably I wanted to drive something that would fit in a lot of places without the hassle and not have a toad (towed vehicle).  A Sprinter sounded like a good compromise.  Sprinters are made by Mercedes-Benz and powered by a Mercedes-Benz turbo-diesel for outstanding durability and great fuel mileage.  It would give me some room for having my own place to sleep wherever I was and still small enough to drive as a "car."  Driving a 24 foot "van" is like driving a Smart car after being used to driving a 65-foot-long, 13 foot tall rig.

I've always had a thing for the old VW Microbus.  You know, the old Hippie Van.  The Sprinter, to me at least, is like a modern day version, though decidedly upscale over the old microbus.  But it has that go-anywhere, anytime attitude.

So in comes the new Sprinter.  My conversion was done by Winnebago in Forest City, Iowa. She's 24 feet long and just under 10 feet high.  Just the right size to whip around in the city and be comfortable on the highway.  She's equipped with a stove, microwave, fridge/freezer, 2 sinks, a small bathroom w/ shower, TV w/ DVD and an electric fold down rear couch that converts to a queen size bed. If I get tired I just look for a place to park for the night whether it be a rest area, truck stop, BLM land, scenic overlooks or whatever.  Maybe even a campground if I need to fill water, dump tanks and get reliable wifi for an evening.

When I'm on the back roads I have a tendency to drive by something and want to whip around and go back and photograph it. The Sprinter makes it easy to turn around and go back to what caught my eye.  In the old rig it was a hassle to do that.

Some iPhone snapshots of the Sprinter.

One big adjustment with the new RV is that it is small.  I've had to learn how to pack an RV all over again.  I've learned that I really didn't need all that "stuff" in the rig, except the camera equipment.  While there are tradeoffs going to a much smaller unit, so far I am very satisfied.  Roaming around the country and getting 24 mpg in my "house" is pretty cool.

Next up....heading west

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South Carolina back roads

There are a few places in this country where time seems to stand still and the back roads of South Carolina is one of them.  While traveling south from Columbia, SC I decided to get off the big road and travel down Highway 321, also known as Savannah Highway.  There were some interesting town names on the highway so what the heck.  I mean, who wouldn't want to visit North, South Carolina.  The town was named after a John North, one of three men who donated land to start the town in 1891 and prospered from the cotton trade.

  The old North High School

We then passed through Norway and stopped in Denmark, SC.  Seeing as my grandfather was a Danish immigrant I thought it was kind-of cool to visit.  It is another town that is stopped in time and very retro.  My kind of place!  I never heard of Denmark, SC but found out it is the location of the first transcontinental phone call made in this country from the AT&T building in 1915.  The town, though, was not named after the country but a Captain Denmark who was an official with the South Bound Rail Road Company that built the railroad into the town in 1833.  No wonder I didn't see any Danish flags flying around the area.  Oh, and hit up the Freezie Breezie in an old converted gas station for some sandwiches and ice cream. One of my favorite buildings was the surviving Gulf Oil gas station that was saved and converted into a dry cleaners.

 

 New meets old with cell phone antennas on the old water tank in Denmark.

 The old railroad station.

 The historic Diner.

 Brookers sells everything from hardware to fine china.

Pooles still has the old fashioned candy counter inside.

The little town of Olar south of there had a couple old gas stations that haven't been touched in years.  And just south of there on Bufords Bridge Highway at the intersection of Carolina Highway is a great old abandoned truck stop and an old motel.  At one time this was a much more heavily traveled highway before the interstate system came.

 A remnant from the Golden Age of gas station architecture.

 

 

I love seeing these old towns that seem to be stuck in a time warp.  Some are just shadows of the past and barely able to hang on while others embrace the past and capitalize on it.

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The beginning of some changes...

After much consideration of the past few weeks I decided to resign from being the Sheridan High School yearbook photographer. 

In a perfect world I guess that I would have time to do all the little local things in addition to everything else in my life.  I am trying to cut down on the things that require me to be tied to the studio in so-called retail hours.  I am in a position where I can travel more for photo projects and the studio hours are getting in the way. I also spend many hours in volunteering for 3 different organizations and I'd like to keep doing that and also increase my time spent with them.

I didn't come to this decision lightly as I have always enjoyed working with the school as the yearbook advisors and everyone involved has been most helpful.  But times change and my aspirations have changed in what I want to do.  I need to be able to take off for a few days or a week or a month when I need to and keeping retail hours makes that impossible.

Yes, I will still be shooting Senior photos and do have appointments on the books but at least I can tailor the appointments around my schedule.  And yes, I still have the studio on Main Street.  At least for now. If I end up spending more time away from the studio it may not make sense to keep the space.  I may move to another location in Cicero, Westfield or Carmel to better suit my needs but I am not sure yet.  The Sheridan location may work the best with my lifestyle so time will tell.

So there you have it.  The beginning of some changes and some rationale on why.  The school will notify the senior class about the yearbook portrait arrangements in the future.