A Freeway Runs Through It

All those hours of work in the last two weeks has caught up with me. Now I'm sick or have allergies, and back to work tomorrow. Haven't felt like working on any thing. Here's a little something I wrote back in November 2005. I think I was visiting my Dad when my stepmother, Geri, was very ill (see the story below, "My Father"). Train Through Pennsylvania   Bare trees, back yards grown over with rusted cars and washing machines. the Three Mile Island cooling towers, gray silos against the cloudy sky. small towns, dilapidated houses along the tracks. glassless windows, peeling paint, collapsed porches. aluminum trailer parks. gray gravel, orange mud, pumpkins rotting in a field of brown stalks. Amish farmland succumbing to homogeneous subdivisions.

An amusement pier in winter, Wildwood, NJ Not a whole lot going on. Worked seven days last week. So, not a lot of time to work on this, or much else for that matter. My family and I used to go to Wildwood by the Sea when my sister and I were kids. It has a long boardwalk and a number of amusement piers, food stands, and stores selling cheesy t-shirts, kinda like Wisconsin Dells. As you can see in the photo, the beach is huge, I think almost a half mile from the boardwalk to the shoreline (well, maybe not that far). I kind of like going there during the off season when the scene is desolate. You can get really good deals on fudge and saltwater taffy. I hope to do a little piece on Holbrook, AZ soon. Old Route 66, the Wigwam Motel, rock shops selling petrified wood among other things. The town has certainly seen better days. Stay tuned.

Cape May Point State Park. South Jersey is also very beautiful, by the way. Here's a link to Hogan Photo. Michael Hogan does some really nice photographs of southern New Jersey. Check out the gallery links toward the bottom of the page. The Delaware Bay scenes are the most familiar to me. The Pine Barrens are really beautiful too. www.hoganphoto.com