Holding Back the Team

An Amish farmer holds back a team of mules pulling a wagon at a railroad grade crossing near Greens Fork, Indiana.

There are number of Amish farms here and such sites as this are not uncommon.

Where Will the Road Take You?

I’ve always seen an open road as an invitation to travel, even if for just a short distance. As a photographer I find a road hard to resist when out making images.

Shown is Gates Pass Road near Tucson, Arizona. It passes through Tucson Mountain Park and we had stopped at a pullover so I could make images of the surrounding mountains.

As often happens, I find myself making open road images when I am actually seeking to photograph something else.

Gates Pass is a twisting, turning road that goes up and over the mountains and is typically traveled by those going from Tucson to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum or the Old Tucson amusement park.

The view here is looking eastward. Follow this road as you see it here and you’ll eventually wind up back in Tucson.

Industrial Space

You can find blocks like this one in every American city and town of any size.

An old red brick factory sits in the heart of the city, often next to a railroad track.

Some of these industries are very much alive and well while others sit silent and vacant as monuments to another era. In a few cases, the buildings have been repurposed.

I’m not sure of the status of this industrial site in Marion, Ohio, but there is something about it that is quintessentially American and typical of the Midwest.

The boarded up windows on the first floor suggest abandonment, but the windows on the second floor suggests life.

The fading paint on the side that once proclaimed what company owned this building and what it made is a testament to another time.

VW Microbus Nostalgia Parada

This is one of those photo ops that came rolling down the road — literally. I was in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park when a parade of Volkswagon micobuses came past.

I know nothing about this event. Perhaps they were all headed toward a meet of VW owners and were traveling in a convoy. Maybe this is what microbus owners do.

These weren’t new VWs, but the kind of microbus that you would have seen on the highways in the 1960s filled with hippie types.

Just as soon as it arrived, the VW convoy was gone.

Jogging and Biking on a Rural Road

Here are a couple of young folks out for some exercise. He is jogging, but she is riding a bicycle. They are headed east on a rural road leading out of the village of Siam, Ohio. It was a beautiful day to be out with mostly sunny skies and temperatures in the 70s. That also made a nice day to go make photographs of everyday life.

Nice Day to Go for a Hike

It was a sunny Sunday morning and I was standing along Riverview Road in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

Along came a group of what I believe were ROTC cadets from Kent State University. They were going for a hike along the shoulder of the road, but jogging is a better description for this exercise in getting exercise.

Despite the snow on the ground, it was not overly cold, which you can probably tell by the fact that the women in the group were wearing tee shirts with their fatigues.

Road to Infinity

One of the distinguishing features of the American West is how if you get up high enough you can see a road unwinding for what appears to be miles off into infinity.

This road is North Soldier Trail in northeast Tucson. I was driving southward when I caught this view and pulled off to record it.

I wanted to get a break in the traffic, but I also didn’t have time to wait it out as we had somewhere we needed to go.

What fascinates me the most about this view is not so much the road in the foreground, but the road in the distance, which is not an extension of Soldier Trail. It is another road.

But there is an illusion that the road dips down and out of sight only to rise up again farther away.

I Have of One of Those, Just Not That Large

So a friend and I are driving eastbound on Interstate 90 in Lake County, Ohio, east of Cleveland when I see what looks like an L.L. Bean boot going down the road.

Well, it was a Bean boot. OK, not a boot you can put on but a covering over a truck designed to look like the company’s signature boots, was in Ohio for grand openings of new stores in Cleveland and Columbus.

Given that it has a Maine license plate and the company is headquartered in Freeport, Maine, I presume that it is heading back there. It turns out this is one of two such vehicles that Bean has.

By the way, I love my L.L. Bean boots. They’re great in deep snow.

Mountains or Clouds

It was late afternoon at Pinacle Peak in Scottsdale, Arizona. It was a typical hot day in July so we couldn’t linger too long. Besides, we had plans to go to dinner. I was struck by how those clouds behind the mountains in the distance had the same contours of a mountain range. That raises the question of are they clouds or are they mountains. You can decide which are which.

Muted Welcome to Pennsylvania

On the interstate highways, Pennsylvania welcomes visitors with large signs that seek to brand the state with whatever image campaign is in vogue.

When I lived in Pennsylvania, the theme was “America starts here.” The current signs sport the slogan “State of Independence.”

But off the interstate the welcome is a bit more, shall we say, low key.

This sign on U.S. Route 20 on the Pennsylvania-New York border welcomes you but doesn’t describe the state.

But at least the border is marked. I was on a back road that crossed the Pennsylvania-Ohio border southeast of Youngstown, Ohio, that had no sign denoting the state line. No welcome to Pennsylvania. No welcome to Ohio.

I figured out I was in Pennsylvania when most of the cars I saw parked at homes along the side of the road had Pennsylvania license plates.