top of page

After moving to So. California in my late teens, I'd make the drive

back up to Northern CA, every year after that, to where I was raised so

that I could spend Christmas with my family....driving my BMW as fast

as I could via CA Hiway 99 both ways. This was a lot of fun, however,

the older I got and the more crowded the roads became, it became

more stressful than fun, so I began to take it easy and look 

around at what was going on....along the roadside.

 

To my surprise, I discovered that a lot of the deteriorating remnants of 

what used to be a thriving commercial byway, before Interstate 5 was built and bypassed it, was still visible. So, I began stopping here and there to 

capture some of it in b&w, with the idea of possibly putting together a

book about the loss of this formerly commercially viable roadway. But,

then I discovered that someone else already had! Besides that, today

it has pretty much recovered to the point where, unfortunately you

can't tell what town you're in because all of the little mini-malls that

have been built along that "roadside" look pretty much the same!

 

No matter, because I had become just as interested in making

photographs of the old, vintage travel and house trailers I kept

coming across then as well....because they seemed to have other

stories that were all their own, as well. Ironically, in fact, my interest

in these old coaches was what started me down the road of  becoming completely involved with the vintage trailer phenomenon at the turn

of the last century....but, for more on this, please see my <INFO>

page. The images here that I've made of these old girls that I've

found all over the state, while looking for the same thing

to collect, resell or restore...are a result of that and the

titles I've given them allude to their imagined stories.

 

The photography of the three, vintage fire trucks in

front of the Keeler Volunteer Fire Department also makes

for interesting and ironic subject matter. That's because, either

they must not have a lot of fires around the town of Keeler or

there must be some other, newer fire engines around somewhere.

Because, these old trucks are in no condition to be fighting any fires anywhere, anytime soon. Thus the tongue-in-cheek, "Ready To Roll?" title.

 

 

bottom of page