Old Year 2017

The reference here is this post from the last day of 2011.  So the other day I found myself standing in front of the self-proclaimed “tree of knowledge,”  a place that also demanded that there be no smoke.  Tree of KNOWLEDGE!!!  Holy smokes!

It was a cemetery of sorts, a mass grave where over 4000 formerly-smoking steel machines were congregated…

Here’s a photo of more of the tree of knowledge . . . with, I suppose, fruits of wisdom, on some of its branches.

The truly rare are here, fodder for truckster posts to come. Can you identify this and the date of the Studebaker above?

I always go for the low-hanging fruit.

It’s so easy to anthropomorphize vehicles of this era.  As a kid, I saw these machines’ emotions.

By the way, the grove where I took these photos is in NW Georgia, and I’ve posted photos from there once before, but that time I had not noticed the tree of knowledge.

Evidence that this is automobile holy ground?  No shoes.

I had to read this one few times before I got it.

The final trip for this one.

My guesses:  1948 Studebaker,  1938 Mack Jr. delivery van, 1955 H-series International, 1969 GMC P-series Value Van, and 1960 VW Type 2 van.

I’ve got many more from this most recent pilgrimage to the grove.  Let me know if you’re interested in another take in 2018.

Meanwhile, be good decisions and make safe.  I hope I can stay with this program through the next year.  Out with the old . . . out into the honesty of daylight, that is.

All photos here by Will Van Dorp, some of whose previous “old car city” photos can be found in these posts. And a short cut to “old boat bay” photos can be found here.

 

Road Fotos 35

This post quite directly follows on 14 in this series, from two years ago.  Just fotos today, all taken since the winter solstice.  Call this where roads go

and where they end.

Before you leave . . .

sign out.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.

Retrospective 2

Unpacking a suitcase or knapsack I like to be fast;  unpacking my head after a trip I like to be slow.   The foto (doubleclick enlarges) below I took Christmas morning 7:57 am . . . Hiwassee River under I-75 . . . it was so moody, so unwelcoming of Christmas scenes that I stopped the car on the shoulder just beyond the bridge and ran back to get this foto.  I know you’re not supposed to do that, but  . . .

Notice that I’ve added many new fotos to the Flickr show on the left side of this page, all taken at Old Car City in White, Georgia, a place of ghosts like this one of Hernando de Soto.  His face here looks as disoriented as I felt walking through the

4000 cars haunting this woods.  The image below is interactive.

Obviously I saw cars here, in various states of degradation, but I also saw people from my past.  No . . . I’m  not really a lunatic, but seeing a De Soto I think of the great-uncle who sponsored my father to this country.  Seeing a Hudson I remember Ernie, the farmer from across the valley who drove one unless he was sitting on his Minneapolis Moline face flushed from a combination of sun and hard cider he made himself.

My parents drove me home from my birthplace/hospital in a Plymouth.

Cadillacs and almst all the cars of my youth were  massive, chromeplated, and evocative of greatness with their artdeco decorations.  I could go on, but check the Flickr shots.

I’ve said before . . . Wilmington is a place I’ll go back to next December if not sooner.   Meet Log Dog, launched 1953, (ex-D. E. 51) and

Isco . . . Here’s a foto of Isco from the bank of Eagle Island.

Pelicans . . . I still need to get a foto of a squadron of these guys wingtips skimming the water.  Help me out here:  I recall someone telling me of a pelican sighted on Jamaica Bay last summer.  Anyone see it or hear of it?

Last ones . . .  my March 2011 shots of Vinalines Queen has been getting lots of views the past few weeks.

I’m not sure why, but here are a few I hadn’t published.  I’d love to hear from you.

So  . . . the unpacking continues.  Hope you enjoy the new Flickr shots.

Road Fotos 14

When the road gets long and you see a unique sign like this promising paradise, who

could resist?  This is the terrestrial inland version of the ship graveyard on the Arthur Kill.  This old Packard used a ship’s wheel as decortion.

Ships disintegrate on a mudflat sink into ooze, whereas here trees surge through,

and kudzu carpets.

Post-war automobiles had art deco “figureheads” of all sorts, like this 1950 (?) Pontiac, and

this DeSoto.

Strolling through these north Georgia woods gives hints of a post-petroleum future, a time and place where

archeologists yet-to-be-born might devote years of research and write dissertations on puzzling markers like these.

All fotos by Will Van Dorp.  More road fotos . . . soon.

Note:  Old Car City is about two miles off I-75.