Last Day

Sue and I have had a painting in our kitchen for 20 years, of a little diner called "Susie-Q" with the motto "Let's Eat Here!"

I knew it was a real place, I'd seen it years ago working in Mason City, Iowa.  I've been meaning to go check it out for a long time, but like Bartlesville, it's not really on the way to anywhere, I'd have to make a side trip.
Mason City is also where Frank Lloyd Wright's Park Inn Hotel was built.  This is a bank and hotel complex, built in 1910.  While FLW was there, he was commissioned to build several houses, and evidently there was a Prairie Architecture boom, because there are also some excellent Walter Burleigh Griffin houses and others built around the same time.

I found the Susie-Q diner, unfortunately it was closed Sundays.  It looks kind of beat up, but still picturesque.

The Park Inn complex was being restored.  According to their website it'll be redone like the original.  Right now it's pretty much disassembled, I hope they can do a suitable restoration.
I took the walking tour, saw a lot of nice homes.  I'm a big fan of Prairie School and the Arts and Crafts movement.  There are some nice examples there.
Even an old fire station - I couldn't find any info on it, but it looked cool.

I followed US-18 most of the way home. The only trouble with the middle of nowhere is there aren't a lot of restaurants.  Other than chain places, I couldn't find anything interesting along the drive.  Eventually hunger drove me to grab a Subway sandwich... oh well.

Eating good regional food and camping out more were the only things I wasn't able to do as much as I'd hoped on the trip, though. The lack of good local food seems to be a tradeoff for exploring the most unpopulated areas, and the weather is hard to predict - it would have been perfect for sleeping out by the time I was leaving.
Overall, it was an excellent time.  I saw a lot of things I'd wanted to, and most of them lived up to expectations.  I had good subjects to photograph, and I had the time to think about my photography - my tastes, influences and motivations, and what images I want to make.
I arrived home recharged, ready to get back to work, looking forward to the next getaway.
Thanks for reading this.  I plan on posting the next trip... when I find out where I'm going.

Zigzagging home

Post for Saturday, Oct. 30
Whenever I'm on a road trip, and it's time to head back, I tend to drive straight through, and get home as fast as possible.  It's partly a habit from when I worked on the road - the Six Days on the Road effect. I remember my father doing the same thing.
I'm trying to reconsider assumptions and habits, and I'm tired of arriving home burnt out from a marathon drive.
So, I tried making the drive home a continuation of the trip, taking my time and stopping along the way.
I was planning on continuing to follow old Route 66, I-44 from Oklahoma City through Missouri.  But I've done that route many times, and I'd already spent quite a bit of time looking at Route 66 attractions.
Google Maps' suggested route was different from my usual one, up I-35 and across Iowa on US-20, going near several places I've been wanting to explore.
First off, though, I made another Route 66 stop - Shamrock, Texas.

There's a beautifully restored service station / diner there I've been wanting to photograph, and the weather and light were perfect.

I stayed on the freeway up to Tulsa, and then headed north to Bartlesville, OK.  The Price Tower, Frank Lloyd Wright's only skyscraper, is there - no one ever paid for his mile high skyscraper design for some reason...

I used to work around Bartlesville every year, and vaguely remember noticing it, but I wasn't paying much attention to that sort of thing back in the 80s I guess.
I was wandering around, photographing it from different angles, and then found out that there were tours available, and I was just in time for the last one of the day.  Photos weren't allowed inside, unfortunately, but it was quite interesting to see - partly in a 'what the hell were they thinking?' way.
Like a lot of FLW work, it's more a sculpture than a useful, livable building.

Even though it's 19 stories tall, it's vary narrow, and the rooms are oddly shaped.  Doors and stairways are very small, and the furniture had to be custom built to fit in the angled walls and corners. If it wasn't for all the glass, it would be very claustrophobic.
It's visually pleasing and far ahead of it's time, though, and I was pleased to see they've done a lot of restoration work.
From there it was two lanes for quite a ways, beautiful day to travel through the prairie.

Back in familiar territory

Post for Friday, Oct 29
I've been going through Santa Fe on each trip through New Mexico.  It has a lot of spots I like.
The Plaza Cafe is high on the list - it's an art deco diner with stainless steel interior, built when Route 66 ran that way.  The food and service has always been excellent - highly recommended.
But this time it's closed for remodeling!  Found an OK place, but not the food I was planning on, and certainly not the decor.  Nice sign though.

Went to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum next.  I'd been there a year ago, but wanted to see the paintings of landscapes I was looking at yesterday.  Her work has been resonating with me.  I'd like to make my landscapes and still lifes simpler, verging on abstraction.  I also tend to emulate her choice of subject matter.
Andrew Smith Gallery is now right next door - by far the best photographic gallery I've seen.  I spent a rewarding hour or two there looking at original prints by Ansel Adams, Herman Leonard, Elliot Erwitt, Cartier-Bresson and many others.
On my way out, I stopped at Pecos Pueblo National Historic Park. This was a huge trading point, the only year round pass in the area between the plains and the mountain valleys further west.  It eventually had 700 rooms and housed up to 2000 people.
There's not much left, basically foundations, but it's interesting to see the scale of it and imagine what it was like.
The only building standing is the ruins of the mission - I guess it's fitting that after a thriving 1000 year settlement, only the church of the exterminators remains.

I like traveling via old Route 66.  There's a lot of history, from a time when traveling across the country by car was a new possibility.  I like the architecture, the art deco and roadside modern, all the neon...

I've driven the stretch from Santa Fe east before, but the weather had been gray and blustery, not conducive to photography.  Today it was beautiful, bright and warm.
I stopped at some places I'd photographed before, and redid them, and explored some new sites.

A grocery store in Tucumcari has a good selection, I got a big bag of green chiles for 99 cents a pound - my kind of souvenir. 
With all the stops, I only made it as far as Amarillo, but that's an easy two day drive home.

Brought to you by Acme and Little Giant products.

Entry for Thursday, 10/28
Nice night sleeping in the wilderness - the moon was so bright it woke me when it came up.
When I got up, it was 19 degrees and well before dawn.  I'd planned to make coffee and hang out a bit, but I just jumped in the truck and started driving. It worked out well, by the time the sun was coming up I was in another picturesque area.
I did some more map research - the Four Corners make it kind of tough, there are four maps to coordinate to plan a route.  Monument Valley sounded like what I was looking for, on the Utah - Arizona border.
I'd guessed right - it had the spectacular rock formations and views I was hoping to find - like the background of a Roadrunner cartoon.

 There was a sort of road running back behind the balanced rock formation, overlooking a creek and a lot of hills.  Nice place to have breakfast.

From there I headed east - Kayenta, AZ was my furthest point west.  I considered going further, the Grand Canyon isn't all that far, but better not to overdo it - I have to be home by Sunday.

It's a great area to drive.  very sparsely populated, magnificent scenery, easy to pull off the road and wander wherever you like.
I went through Shiprock, which sadly is hazy and eye-watering from the giant coal fired power plants in the area.

Continuing east, I drove through the northern edge of New Mexico.  The land was what I would call 'typically' New Mexico, although NM has so many different terrains there isn't really a representative.one.  Brown, exposed, rounded rock hillsides, pinon pine and juniper in the valleys, douglas fir in the alpine areas.
My next destination was Georgia O'Keefe country.  While I'm not really a huge fan - I like some of her paintings quite a bit, but a lot of others seem contrived and repetitive - I like her eye for landscape and her abstractions.  She had an affinity for the same country I do. In that way, she is an influence on my work, and I want to explore that.
I saw a 'Ghost Ranch' marked on the map and knew she'd stayed there.  As I headed that way, down the Chama valley, the landscape became more orange sandstone, with some green accents, eroded into striking formations.
I saw a mountain that looked very familiar from her paintings,

I inquired and it is indeed one of her favorite subjects - it's called Pedernal Mountain.
Ghost Ranch was a tourist ranch O'Keefe had visited, and eventually bought a piece of for her home.
There is now a small museum there, and you can see the same views that were her 'back yard'.

Leaving there, the sun was getting low, and the scenery was beautiful.  I spent a couple hours wandering around shooting pictures and enjoying the view.

 Spent the night in Espanola, kind of a funky little town on the way to Santa Fe, but with much cheaper lodging.  Had an OK New Mexican dinner - great posole, average enchiladas.