Archive for October, 2008
Friday, October 24th, 2008
Athens, Ohio
Walking around in Athens on my first day there I felt great relief. So many young people, so many pretty people, in general, so many people. Most of my trip has gone through outback America, places with as few as 17 people (Middlegate, Nevada), 200 people (Austin, Nevada), 10 000 people (Delta, Utah).
Usually with these small places, anyone who is born there moves away when they reach adulthood, to go to larger cities that can offer schools, universities and cultural events in general.
I guess the same problem exists all over the world, the bigger issue of urbanization.
Athens have the opposite problem – young people come in hordes every september, trashing the town in some aspects, and bringing so much back in a lot of others.
I read in a newspaper while I was there, that the fire department had to put out a couch that was burning in the street. There was a big street party going on, where several houses were participating. Reportedly, the crowd of 2 500 people chanted “NUMBER ONE PARTY SCHOOL” as the firemen extinguished the couch.
Now, I wasn’t at that party in particular, but I was at a concert in someones basement, at a combined concert and art exhibition, a chili cook-off where the mayor of the town were one of the judges. This contest of gastronomical skills ended in a spontaneous rap concert in the backyard. I guess non of these things would have happened if it weren’t for all the students.
Friday, October 24th, 2008
84515
This is Cisco, a ghosttown just west of Grand Junction in Utah. According to Wikipedia the town survived long enough into the 20th century to obtain a ZIP-code, namely 84515.
Judging by the type of cars that were there i would say people moved out of here in the 70’s, but that’s a wild guess by my side.
I don’t know if this is an american thing, but along the way there has been plenty of left-behind cars, agricultural tools and trailers of all sorts. I feel that, at least in Norway, where I come from, if we move, we take our car/cars with us. But here… It might be some kind of use-and-throw-mentally that America has going on, or I might be completely off by saying such a thing. But I feel the consumer mentality, the idea that “if it’s broken, buy a new one”, is stronger here.
Maybe that’s the American way. And the American Dream is to be able to. And it’s shattering as we speak.
Friday, October 17th, 2008
Untitled
Tuesday, October 14th, 2008
The last frontier
In a small town called Hutchinson (population 40 000), in the middle of Kansas, is the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center. The location of it seems rather arbitrary, as I, at least, would seek to place such a museum in a city with more people. Now well. It was quite a special place. And in the midst of rockets, spacesuits and landingcapsules, I found a real rocket scientist. Retired, but a rocket scientist nontheless.
Real rockets.
Sci-fi artwork.
He used to work with atomic bombs.
Heatshielded landing-capsule, and space-suits.
Rocket engine.
Sunday, October 12th, 2008
Songs for the road
Tidvis, Lars Winnerbäck
Kom Änglar, Lars Winnerbäck
Försvarstal, Lars Winnerbäck
Sudden rainstorm, Nevada.
Delta, Utah.
John McCain in debate.
Watching the debate.
Telephone pole.
Llyod Mueller sr, closing his bar.
Mountain in Utah, along Colorado river.
Still in Utah.
Wednesday, October 8th, 2008
Austin, Nevada, population 200
One of three churches in Austin, Nevada
Tim, Vietnam War veteran, outside the bar he tends.
Joe Montana, votes McCain, at the International Bar in Austin.
“You’ll never be broke, you’ll always have a dollar in Austin.”
Vic Antic, bartender at International Bar in Austin.
View to the west from Austin.
Sunday, October 5th, 2008
Random shots from last week
Nevada desert, just east of Carson City
Restaurant, Fallon
Lake Lahontan, Nevada
Lakebed, Lake Lahontan, Nevada
Some mountain between Austin and Fallon in Nevada
Sand Mountain, Nevada
Sand Mountain, Nevada
I’ve reached Grand Junction, and managed to get a room at the Melrose Hotel, even though the sign said “NO Vacancy”. It’s a lovely Victorian house downtown, with the Main Street just a block away. The hotel was founded in 1908, and back then you could rent a room for 50 cents a night. The hotel is, in fact, the only one out of twelve hotels that were once located in downtown Grand Junction.
Today I’ve driven for almost 9 hours. Really looking forward to tomorrow, which, beeing a Monday, is my day of resting. Gonna get up to speed on pictures, though, and spend a couple of hours reading.
Sunday, October 5th, 2008
XDR-TB (extremely drugresistant tuberculosis)
Saturday, October 4th, 2008
Amateur World Championship of aggressive inline skating
First of all, I’m way behind on pictures. Not been disciplined enough, I have to do something about that.
Second – aggressive inline skating is seriously a difficult sport to photograph, especially in a competition. It’s totally random, the competitors can go anywhere on the course, and do whatever they want to.
My conclusion is, if you wanna do actionshots of a sport like this, it has to be planned, and you probably need radiocontrolled flashes (at least if you are inside).
I’m gonna do more of this when I get back to Norway, though.
Wednesday, October 1st, 2008
Ol’ Waynard
I met Ol’ Waynard outside the McDonalds where the I-5 and CA-46 intersects, just northwest of Bakersfield, California.
Waynard has been hitchhiking for the last 15 years. Non-stop. Imagine that. He’s 71 years old, and crushed his ankle in an hit-and-run maybe 50 years ago. He still struggles with his injury.
He had a map of the USA, where he had marked all the roads he had hitchhiked with a yellow marker. The map was full of yellow lines going crisscross over it.
Sadly I was going in the opposite direction, so I couldn’t give him a ride. Now, I regret that I didn’t take the extra six hours to give him a lift to whereever he was going. I’m thinking, a guy like that, has to be great company.
Wednesday, October 1st, 2008
US Senate passes bailout plan
Wednesday, October 1st, 2008
You Can’t Fix This
Everyone vote now!