trailer of dreams

holidays coming, my least favorite time of the year. but maybe i’ll find time to post a few more images more often.

helped the better half sift through storage this morning, to pull out the boxes of xmas decorations—from the back of the storage unit—of course. jammed my thumb helping to shove the perinnial, ancient xmas tree into my back seat. bent the nail back a bit, and now have an aching bruise going on the end under the nail. so adding that to my list of why i don’t want to bother with holidays.

makes my better half feel happy to decorate, but the pain involved wrapping the five- to ten-thousand lights on the damn thing sucks. guess he plans on the toy story theme this year, so it will also be covered with toys.

it does look good when it’s done, but the process makes me want to find some way to be able to throw it as is in a box every year. no way we could, though…the lights make it too heavy to even move. i’d consider just leaving it up year round, but our front room is too small here.

anyway, my mind is drifting to past and future trips. i think i’ve officially attained burn out at work yet again, but with the holidays, the work load is expected to be light through to january.

saw this truck full of project cars in october, out in seligman, arizona. the driver, who was across the street, spotted me shooting pics of his rig. he walked up and noticed i had a “real” camera. he was cool. said he and his brother—who had another rig full of these cars around the corner—were heading to southern california, delivering project cars to eager owners.

hope to see some of these at shows someday, but i’d never recognize them, probably.

swallows

here’s a picture from our trip back in october, at the famous blue swallow motel. better half looking for all the historical stuff and neon, but we were never near it by the time the sun set. closest we got was in seligman, but decided to keep moving to another town for that night.

my better half, my brother, and myself were flitting about this landmark taking pics, with our “professional” looking gear, which of course caught the eye of the owner of the motel. he came out and had a chat with my better half, who reassured him that we were not taking commercial images nor using them in illicit ways. nope, just a vacation, just catching some memories. sharing just one here, not cashing in on it.

all these towns were somewhat the same: run down, hanging on, trying to keep appearances. especially empty because of the pandemic, the motel owners were either full up or desperately willing to make a deal to bring in any dollars.

not sure if i liked the road trip or the train trip part of the vacation. not everyday that you see a full train car or two of amish folk (thou art very plain). they stare at us as we pass through their car on the way to the food car, and we stare at them.

quite a number of people trying not to wear a mask, or thinking they were being clever and removing once the conductor had left the car. but the chief conductor was quite willing to stop and drop off anyone with the next sheriff in the middle of nowhere. they actually did that, and it was a group of people being rowdy and arguing about the rule.

either way, there was a lot of time just staring out the window, neck getting sore, so switching from one seat to the other to equalize the ache.

being in the back seat of the car ride back from washington, dc, once you hit texas, new mexico and arizona, there are long stretches of sameness. seemed to bother my better half that i spent a lot of time reading my ipad. i couldn’t hear the conversation up front, and i’d look about and shoot pics through the window once in a while. whatever.

that being said, my better half didn’t think i enjoyed the trip. it was different, but i’d do it again, but only if we had more than two weeks. and take more stops off the train—too many nights in the sleeping car is not my favorite. i liked the idea, but i couldn’t sleep!