Hi Jed! Yay! There are so many fascinating abandoned and semi abandoned places out in the Great Basin lands. This was just a selection....
Lots of great abandoned stuff in Australia too - which will appear on Substack, bit by bit. Or is that bit by byte? In fact the first image in this post is of an old Garage from. the little town where I grew up - (insofar as I ever did). When I was a child and teenager It was owned by a crusty old guy named Bill Melluish - a former Speedway Racer.
He spent all his time tinkering with several huge old Plymouth sedans. If you called in to get petrol (what you guys call "gas") he would snarl at you, but if he was in a particularly good mood he would also (grudgingly) let you buy some. If you asked him to to do mechanical work he would just tell you to go away.
Fun roadtrips! I'll be in Arizona in April and will be in the desert.... When not in urban decay areas, "desert decay" hosts the most opportunity to see times of yore.
Love this !!!!! The formatting is divine and I love how you've intertwines your images with your words - very clever, very cool, very enjoyable !!!!! 💖
Thankyou! I'm truly delighted that you enjoyed it. My writing covers all kinds of ground - but one of my obsessions is abandoned things and places. Not sure why. It's about the imprint we leave behind on the world, and how time and nature transform that into something else once people move on, or die, or both...
Everything we do is impermanent, even as we try to hide that fact from ourselves...
Yes! "Remnants of memories is solid, sometimes breaking form" is certainly what they are. Abandoned buildings are imbued with memory. They also have an inadvertent beauty - not the beauty envisaged by the builder - but a version of it added by nature. They are not so much destroyed as recreated - transformed into something new....
I am truly delighted that you enjoyed it, and very grateful that you took the time to say so. We have had a few fabulous road trips through the West. So much more I could write and say about that, and so many more photos...
I travelled with you down the page, I love how you blend your words with the images, such a cool journey, lots of dust and abandoned buildings. Safe travels
I read a book once called paper towns. Are ghost towns the same? I have only ever looked at the pictures of such towns, but it evokes the same feelings in me as a graveyard. Things that could have been, should have been, must have been. Lamenting the past. And also the future. So much lost. It makes me teary.
Hi Naz. That's not a term I have heard. I just did some googling... It looks to me as if "Paper Town" is a term with very limited use. There seems to have been an example - which inspired the book, and a film of the book. Based on the book, the term "Paper Town" gets a Wikipedia entry, with a couple of definitions - one of them being a town which exists "on paper" but not in reality.
I don't know how other people would define "Ghost Town" but it's a widely used term. For me, it means a town which absolutely did exist, with physical structures, but everyone (or almost everyone) has moved away.
I've been to "Ghost Towns" where there were really no buildings left any more - only ruins, or even just forest and grass - but at one time there was a real town. I've been to others where there is a lot to see - and buildings which could still be used. Usually that means there are are still at least a few people around, looking after the place.
And then there are places in between - ruined - overgrown - and definitely abandoned.
There are many in the USA, and quite a few here in Australia. Old mining towns - in remote areas - where everyone left when the minerals were exhausted. Construction camps in remote areas - abandoned when a dam (for example) was completed. Old farming villages which slowly faded away when the land became too degraded to farm - by drought or erosion of topsoil.... - or just because modern technology and transport allowed the residents to live in larger places further away.....
All that remains are ruins and graves and memories.
Fascinating and eerie - words, pictures and the thing about the ghost dance. Driving across America, those population boards were interesting to me too, coming from a city of 10 million! You've pretty much captured the essence of those deserted places, David!
There are many strange places in the world. The USA seems particularly full of them. No wonder they have so many post-apocalypse films and TV series....
DAMNIT!! If I'd know you guys were here, I'd have driven out to that desert to see you!!
Such sad, lovely photos. These places remind of the places in my brain always about to remember a weigh station in the middle of nowhere. It's something that thrills me, gives me the lonelys and set the hairs on my neck to standing up, a sense of doom, a sense of moving on. All your photos remind me of so many places, even when I was young, falling down around me. I used to visit these people with my mom, and they had an upstairs, which I could hardly fathom cause nobody had any upstairs that I knew of. But she always told me I couldn't go up there because the floor might fall in. Seriously. We are all a gnat's eyebrow from falling in. And we have built our lives upon decay.
We are indeed "a gnat's eyebrow from falling in." I used to think of that when I lived in the desert with Hunter Gatherer people. "If it all falls apart, could I survive out here with them?"
These photos are from a couple of years back. I've just been waiting to write something to go with them.
But hey - if we ever get back out there - we'll give you a call!
That won't be happening under your current regime though. I don't know anyone planning a trip to the USA at present, and plenty who have cancelled.
Uhggg. I hate to think that we have become THAT country. We were already bad enough. Now this. I wish we were rich, and that there was a place we could go that would make sense. But I've got my son, my brother, my mother-in-law, my brother-in-law, my father, and Dale and I are in such awful physical shape we could never flee a city.
I do love visiting your country, and I know most people there will be lovely to us - as they have been in the past - but right now your border guards are deporting people with legal residency and refusing entry to others just because they have text messages critical of el-Trumpo on their phone.
Simply writing what I have just written could be enough to be refused entry and sent back on the first return flight.
New Zealand was a better choice for our holiday....
Vanuatu would have been a better choice too. (The hands down happiest, friendliest place we have ever been, even though one of the poorest by western GDP standards).
It will be interesting to see what happens to the US tourism industry over the next 4 years. As for US exports........
The sad thing is, all this will hurt working people the hardest.
Indeed. The US is screwed. We have to have higher taxes, on everybody. Which is sad, but you can't spend more than you take in, year after year, forever.
Oh you are so right Rebecca. Even once I started paying taxes at 17 as a trainee nurse I felt a grownup then. In the mid 70s it felt like I was contributing to my community. I’d drive my shift work to hospital and think ‘maybe those roadworks used part of my taxes; or maybe that new park-playground benefitted from the tax I pay’. Very naive, too idealistic I guess; but I felt a sense of pride working /earning my own dosh / and then paying tax was part of that sense of independence. Never would’ve dreamed of resenting it. I sort of do now when I read what Govt money is outsourced to **Consultants** !!
My passion for the natural world - boundless - has a counterpoint in my fascination with abandoned places, structures and objects. So our road trips tend to swerve between the two - remote forests and mountain peaks, interspersed with ghost towns, shuttered factories and derelict machinery and cars. There is poetry in all of them, although this is a love poem too, for Meg who would follow me anywhere, and I her.
Best Wishes - Dave :)
PS - Go travelling - yes! See you out on the road.....
Hi Dave, this is beyond words brilliant! A fantastic evocation of so many places in the good ol’ US of A. This year is the 10th anniversary of my trip along a large part of Route 66 and I now feel like I have to try and write more of an emotional response to what I witnessed and photographed rather than offer up straightforward reportage. Such food for thought, thank you for sharing. D
P.S. In all of that colossal continent isn’t it amazing that I too have visited Death Valley Junction?
I'm so glad you like this one. With our shared interests in Americana, landscape and weird abandoned places and things... I suppose it's not such a surprise that we both ended up at Death Valley Junction! :)
I have an earlier post about DVJ. Meg and I stayed the night there at the Amargosa Hotel and Opera House, and this post is taken straight from my journal entry, written in the morning as we sat over a coffee at the Amargosa Cafe.
There are other road trips I would do there, but not unless and until there is regime change. We are in NZ right now on a mini road trip. Next up, hopefully, will be some extended travel back home in Australia - back roads, strange places, country towns and gorgeous national parks.
Thankyou my friend, and thanks for the restack! Meg happily accompanied me through every ghost town and abandoned place I could find - which turned out to be quite a lot! (No wonder I love her). This is just a selection....
Really loved this one, David.
Hi Jed! Yay! There are so many fascinating abandoned and semi abandoned places out in the Great Basin lands. This was just a selection....
Lots of great abandoned stuff in Australia too - which will appear on Substack, bit by bit. Or is that bit by byte? In fact the first image in this post is of an old Garage from. the little town where I grew up - (insofar as I ever did). When I was a child and teenager It was owned by a crusty old guy named Bill Melluish - a former Speedway Racer.
He spent all his time tinkering with several huge old Plymouth sedans. If you called in to get petrol (what you guys call "gas") he would snarl at you, but if he was in a particularly good mood he would also (grudgingly) let you buy some. If you asked him to to do mechanical work he would just tell you to go away.
Fun roadtrips! I'll be in Arizona in April and will be in the desert.... When not in urban decay areas, "desert decay" hosts the most opportunity to see times of yore.
Love this !!!!! The formatting is divine and I love how you've intertwines your images with your words - very clever, very cool, very enjoyable !!!!! 💖
Hi tita b.
Thankyou! I'm truly delighted that you enjoyed it. My writing covers all kinds of ground - but one of my obsessions is abandoned things and places. Not sure why. It's about the imprint we leave behind on the world, and how time and nature transform that into something else once people move on, or die, or both...
Everything we do is impermanent, even as we try to hide that fact from ourselves...
Best Wishes - Dave :)
I love that !!!! Remnants of memories in solid, sometimes breaking form
Yes! "Remnants of memories is solid, sometimes breaking form" is certainly what they are. Abandoned buildings are imbued with memory. They also have an inadvertent beauty - not the beauty envisaged by the builder - but a version of it added by nature. They are not so much destroyed as recreated - transformed into something new....
Ah! What a lovely trip you just took me on. I absolutely loved this!
Hi there CC!
I am truly delighted that you enjoyed it, and very grateful that you took the time to say so. We have had a few fabulous road trips through the West. So much more I could write and say about that, and so many more photos...
Best Wishes from Australia, mate - Dave :)
Please continue to share them all! I’m eager to keep traveling with you through them :)
See you out on the road...
Dave :)
I travelled with you down the page, I love how you blend your words with the images, such a cool journey, lots of dust and abandoned buildings. Safe travels
Hi dear Kate
Thankyou!!!
There are some great ghost towns in Lutrowita too….
A post I may put together some time…
Best Wishes - Dave :)
I read a book once called paper towns. Are ghost towns the same? I have only ever looked at the pictures of such towns, but it evokes the same feelings in me as a graveyard. Things that could have been, should have been, must have been. Lamenting the past. And also the future. So much lost. It makes me teary.
Hi Naz. That's not a term I have heard. I just did some googling... It looks to me as if "Paper Town" is a term with very limited use. There seems to have been an example - which inspired the book, and a film of the book. Based on the book, the term "Paper Town" gets a Wikipedia entry, with a couple of definitions - one of them being a town which exists "on paper" but not in reality.
I don't know how other people would define "Ghost Town" but it's a widely used term. For me, it means a town which absolutely did exist, with physical structures, but everyone (or almost everyone) has moved away.
I've been to "Ghost Towns" where there were really no buildings left any more - only ruins, or even just forest and grass - but at one time there was a real town. I've been to others where there is a lot to see - and buildings which could still be used. Usually that means there are are still at least a few people around, looking after the place.
And then there are places in between - ruined - overgrown - and definitely abandoned.
There are many in the USA, and quite a few here in Australia. Old mining towns - in remote areas - where everyone left when the minerals were exhausted. Construction camps in remote areas - abandoned when a dam (for example) was completed. Old farming villages which slowly faded away when the land became too degraded to farm - by drought or erosion of topsoil.... - or just because modern technology and transport allowed the residents to live in larger places further away.....
All that remains are ruins and graves and memories.
Best Wishes - Dave :)
Thank you for Googling it, Dave :). I see. So perhaps the book coined it. Ah. I hope things are spectacular! Much love to you and Meg.
Fascinating and eerie - words, pictures and the thing about the ghost dance. Driving across America, those population boards were interesting to me too, coming from a city of 10 million! You've pretty much captured the essence of those deserted places, David!
Thankyou Rajani
There are many strange places in the world. The USA seems particularly full of them. No wonder they have so many post-apocalypse films and TV series....
Best Wishes - Dave
DAMNIT!! If I'd know you guys were here, I'd have driven out to that desert to see you!!
Such sad, lovely photos. These places remind of the places in my brain always about to remember a weigh station in the middle of nowhere. It's something that thrills me, gives me the lonelys and set the hairs on my neck to standing up, a sense of doom, a sense of moving on. All your photos remind me of so many places, even when I was young, falling down around me. I used to visit these people with my mom, and they had an upstairs, which I could hardly fathom cause nobody had any upstairs that I knew of. But she always told me I couldn't go up there because the floor might fall in. Seriously. We are all a gnat's eyebrow from falling in. And we have built our lives upon decay.
We are indeed "a gnat's eyebrow from falling in." I used to think of that when I lived in the desert with Hunter Gatherer people. "If it all falls apart, could I survive out here with them?"
These photos are from a couple of years back. I've just been waiting to write something to go with them.
But hey - if we ever get back out there - we'll give you a call!
That won't be happening under your current regime though. I don't know anyone planning a trip to the USA at present, and plenty who have cancelled.
Best Wishes - Dave :)
Uhggg. I hate to think that we have become THAT country. We were already bad enough. Now this. I wish we were rich, and that there was a place we could go that would make sense. But I've got my son, my brother, my mother-in-law, my brother-in-law, my father, and Dale and I are in such awful physical shape we could never flee a city.
Ah my friend...
I do love visiting your country, and I know most people there will be lovely to us - as they have been in the past - but right now your border guards are deporting people with legal residency and refusing entry to others just because they have text messages critical of el-Trumpo on their phone.
Simply writing what I have just written could be enough to be refused entry and sent back on the first return flight.
New Zealand was a better choice for our holiday....
Vanuatu would have been a better choice too. (The hands down happiest, friendliest place we have ever been, even though one of the poorest by western GDP standards).
It will be interesting to see what happens to the US tourism industry over the next 4 years. As for US exports........
The sad thing is, all this will hurt working people the hardest.
Sigh.....
D
Indeed. The US is screwed. We have to have higher taxes, on everybody. Which is sad, but you can't spend more than you take in, year after year, forever.
Oh you are so right Rebecca. Even once I started paying taxes at 17 as a trainee nurse I felt a grownup then. In the mid 70s it felt like I was contributing to my community. I’d drive my shift work to hospital and think ‘maybe those roadworks used part of my taxes; or maybe that new park-playground benefitted from the tax I pay’. Very naive, too idealistic I guess; but I felt a sense of pride working /earning my own dosh / and then paying tax was part of that sense of independence. Never would’ve dreamed of resenting it. I sort of do now when I read what Govt money is outsourced to **Consultants** !!
David, this just makes me want to travel. Excellent post and mysteriously wonderful photos.
Hi dear Krissy. Thankyou!
My passion for the natural world - boundless - has a counterpoint in my fascination with abandoned places, structures and objects. So our road trips tend to swerve between the two - remote forests and mountain peaks, interspersed with ghost towns, shuttered factories and derelict machinery and cars. There is poetry in all of them, although this is a love poem too, for Meg who would follow me anywhere, and I her.
Best Wishes - Dave :)
PS - Go travelling - yes! See you out on the road.....
This is so lovely. I feel your love for Meg, too, and what a gift to have someone to do these parts of life with. Yes! See you out there, friend!
Hi Dave, this is beyond words brilliant! A fantastic evocation of so many places in the good ol’ US of A. This year is the 10th anniversary of my trip along a large part of Route 66 and I now feel like I have to try and write more of an emotional response to what I witnessed and photographed rather than offer up straightforward reportage. Such food for thought, thank you for sharing. D
P.S. In all of that colossal continent isn’t it amazing that I too have visited Death Valley Junction?
Hey Dave!
I'm so glad you like this one. With our shared interests in Americana, landscape and weird abandoned places and things... I suppose it's not such a surprise that we both ended up at Death Valley Junction! :)
I have an earlier post about DVJ. Meg and I stayed the night there at the Amargosa Hotel and Opera House, and this post is taken straight from my journal entry, written in the morning as we sat over a coffee at the Amargosa Cafe.
https://davidkirkby.substack.com/p/death-valley-junction
There are other road trips I would do there, but not unless and until there is regime change. We are in NZ right now on a mini road trip. Next up, hopefully, will be some extended travel back home in Australia - back roads, strange places, country towns and gorgeous national parks.
Australiana, mate. :)
Thankyou my friend, and thanks for the restack! Meg happily accompanied me through every ghost town and abandoned place I could find - which turned out to be quite a lot! (No wonder I love her). This is just a selection....
Dave :)