Boil me up some crawfish, Emeril, it's a Big Easy Photo Hunt!

Just after 8:pm as I type this and I've got to go to work in a little while. Who works on a Friday night?!!? I'll let you in on a little secret -- people need medical care 24 hours a day. So be thankful I'm goin' to work!

But first I wanted to get this done. Why? I'm not sure why.
I just wanted to. OKAY?!?!?! [ha ha]

PhotoHunt is a good excuse for me to post something other than music/running. Photography's not a passion of mine but taking pictures is something that I used to casually enjoy. Kind of amazingly, these days I don't have a digital camera (yes, I'm behind the times ... sue me) and not having that many photographs from through the years, pickins are slim. Mayhaps one of these days I'll git me one of dem fancy electronic picture takin' machines and I'll be able to post some better shots. But it looks like I came up with something...

the PhotoHunt theme for this week: twist(ed)

The stated rule for Photo Hunt is:
"Post a photo, on your site, that best represents the theme."

This was tough. Diggin' through what I've got from through the years I found a couple handfuls of shots from New Orleans. I absolutely do not remember taking this... then again I don't really remember taking any of my pictures... I remember being there but I don't remember this spot or the exact day. All I can say about it -- New Orleans, Louisiana, Mardi Gras time 1988.

	Parole Manson? now that's Twisted
	(all images below: click to see bigger, if you wish)

an abandoned building somewhere
in New Orleans, 1988

some more shots from that visit...

Bourbon Street... and some of the nightlife one can enjoy... or enjoy in the morning... or the afternoon...

a typically ornate balcony in the French Quarter

riverboat on the Mississippi River

Saint Louis Cathedral taken from the Mississippi River

Since my mom is from New Orleans, and that's where her family lived,
twas a city I often visited. Guess I was kinda lucky.

There actually are mountains in Texas... just not here!

PhotoHunt is a good excuse for me to post something other than music/running. Photography's not a passion of mine but taking pictures is something that I used to casually enjoy. Kind of amazingly, these days I don't have a digital camera (yes, I'm behind the times ... sue me) and not having that many photographs from through the years, pickins are slim. Mayhaps one of these days I'll git me one of dem fancy electronic picture takin' machines and I'll be able to post some better shots. But it looks like I came up with something...

the PhotoHunt theme for this week: glass

The stated rule for Photo Hunt is:
"Post a photo, on your site, that best represents the theme."

Well, as someone who doesn't always care for rules,
I've decided to take some liberty with this week's theme.

(click images to see 'em bigger, if you'd like.)

Texas Panhandle... (or close to it) in early 1995 on a cross- country roadtrip of mine.
	Photo taken with a camera and the lens is made of glass... and the view is through the [glass] windshield.

More flatness, same road: U.S. Highway 84, between either Abilene & Lubbock or Lubbock & Clovis, New Mexico.

Oil wells this time, on the same road, possibly south of the other pictures, more towards Abilene?
	When taking these I must've been riding shotgun while my friend Summer drove.

Great journey that was. A few more pics from that trip which I've posted
that you can see if you want -- Earth and Billy The Kid's gravesite...
also my VW bus that I was traveling in.

Earthly Arrival by '67 VW

This is a pretty good excuse to put up a post that's not about running or music ... but actually this is related to music, at least the images below are, kinda, sorta, because the ultimate destination was Oakland and Salt Lake to see the Grateful Dead in early 1995.

the PhotoHunt theme for this week: metal

Photography is not a passion of mine but taking pictures is something that I used to casually enjoy ... these days I do not have a digital camera (yes, I'm behind the times ... sue me) and not having that many photographs from through the years, pickins are slim ... but for this week's Photo Hunt, my second, I was able to come up something.

Mayhaps one of these days I'll git me one of dem fancy electronic picture takin' machines and I'll be able to post some better shots. But for now, for this week's theme, here's what I've got...

(click to see bigger, if you wish)

On a roadtrip from rural Virginia to New Orleans, Louisiana and then up to Sacramento, California and onward to Salt Lake City, Utah, my friend Summer and I swung up through west Texas making a stop in a little place called Earth. Located not in the Milky Way galaxy but almost in the Texas panhandle, Earth, Texas (population only about 1,100) is a few miles off the main road from Lubbock to Clovis, New Mexico. This metal sign can be seen (or at least it was there over a decade ago) on Route 70 westbound between Springlake and Muleshoe.

This same roadtrip we made a stop in Fort Sumner, New Mexico where I took a few pics of Billy The Kid's gravesite.

All the way from the Virginia countryside, this was quite a journey, especially breaking down in the tiny Mojave Desert town of Four Corners. Luckily my AAA at the time had free 100 mile maximum limit tows. To get to the nearest VW repair shop, my bus, at like 2 in the morning, rode on a AAA flatbed from Four Corners across the desert 98 miles to Bakersfield. There I was stranded for three days getting a new head put in. Summer took a bus onward to Sacto and I finally made my way there a few days later.

It's almost always an adventure when crossing the country by old VW. Not having some sort of breakdown was usually an uneventful and boring trip!

(again: click to see bigger, if you wish)

my PhotoHunt debut

Not having a digital camera, and not having that many
photographs from through the years, pickins are slim
and this is the best I could find for this week's theme.
Mayhaps one of these days
I'll git me one of dem fancy electronic picture takin' machines
and I'll be able to post some better shots.
But for now, here's my grand debut for this Saturday's PhotoHunt.

theme: Paper

(click for larger, if you wish)

My 1967 VW bus. Shortly after I bought it in Naperville, Illinois (a suburb of Chicago,) here it is in my garage up in Fox Lake, Illinois where I was livin' at the time. There was some rust that I wanted to clean up and some dings I wanted to un-ding. Over that work would go some new paint. This shot here is, I think, the first primer coat. Taped newspaper on the windows so they wouldn't get any paint on them. That would be bad.

Even after this somewhat minor fixup, she wasn't... was it a she? ... it wasn't mint or near-mint by any stretch of the imagination... but what a bus! After a new engine and a new transmission, I criss-crossed America many times in that baby. Many shows and many campgrounds and many, many miles. It got me stranded only once, in Bakersfield, Cali after I broke down 98 miles away in the tiny crossroads of a town, Four Corners, out in the Mohave Desert. It was a Westfalia so it had cabinets in the back and a pull-out bed. No pop-top so it only slept two. Man, I miss it. Years ago I had to sell it. Needed money at the time. But for a good long while it was such a great thing to travel in. Well, mostly great... soooo cold in the winter, had to wear a down jacket and gloves and sometimes even a blanket across my lap. But it was so cool. Today I have a '73 Westy but I'd love once again to have a '67! Maybe someday I'll get another.