'Tis The Season...

'Tis the season! Get it? OK, it's a bit lame but it is, indeed, the start of my season again. The fact that it coincides with Christmas is purely accidental since they both share winter. Besides, if I was doing a Forgotten Australia, it wouldn't work and I'd have to come up with a catchier title. But I digress. For eight months out of the year I await the onset of winter. Not that I like cold weather. I detest it with a passion so much so that mere words fail me. But, for those of you who are reading my witty reparte' for the first time, winter is my season to shoot. My reasons are varied but to summarize, the leaves have fallen from the trees, the kudzu has gone dormant and the winter skies are stark and gloomy. All these create a significant part of my canvas and are necessary evils.

So far I've managed to get two days in which is not too shabby considering December is a month fraught with distraction. My first outing, Saturday the 13th, started at 4:40 AM. I had previously found a house in east Alabama that sits in a field. There are no trees. There's pretty much nothing except the house. I wanted to get there at sunrise because the dawn sun would make an awesome backdrop to this otherwise lonely structure. Unfortunately I got caught by a stopped train that cost me a good 15 minutes. Then there was the requisite distractions I encounter along the way. One was this house north of Alexander City on AL 22. As you can imagine, things like this are my shiny object. My reasoning is always "Will I ever pass this way again?" and the short answer is probably not. Carpe Rustium I always say and stop to get a few shots. As you might imagine this will, of course, throw me off my timetable. It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make to create my masterpiece.

(Insert winky face here to denote not taking myself too seriously)

As I mentioned at the beginning, tis the season which means chances are I'm going to find a Christmas parade in some small town in Alabama. This was the end of the one in Hollis Crossroads. Merry Christmas by the way. 

Any trip that does not include the famous Elephant gas station in Roanoke is a trip wasted don't you think? But, as it turns out, according to the site roadsideamerica.com, it was built as rocky cliffs and a lighthouse to catch tourists heading to Florida. According to the story, as told by a descendant of the original owner, the lighthouse made the roof leak and it was removed. The structure was later modified to accommodate a used car lot. The remaining structure resembled an elephant and a subsequent owner added the eye.

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/21925

This past Saturday, the 21st, I was further north. Mostly Cleburne and Cherokee Counties. I had stopped at an old cotton gin when I was accosted by a Cherokee County Sheriff's deputy (my third time to be queried by law enforcement btw). He was passing by and saw my truck and wanted to know what I was doing. I held up my camera and then asked if I needed to get lost. He just shook his head and said nope. As long as I wasn't out stealing scrap metal he didn't care. We struck up a conversation and then he started giving me ideas of places I might like to see. Even gave me his fold-up map of Cherokee County. I went to one of the places he told me and he caught up with me. We chatted for a good 15 mins more. This little store was one of the places he suggested. I can assure you that nobody here would have found this place because of how remote it was but he described in detail its exact location. Corporal Gene Knowles was his name. He doesn't do Facebook so he'll never even know I mentioned him but a good guy nonetheless.

As I was passing through Anniston on Greenbrier Dear Road I just happen to spot this on the side of the road. An abandoned miniature golf course named Putters. Instant goldmine in my particular view of things! I whupped (yes, whupped is a word. Any true Southerner knows this word and not always for good reasons) around and parked. This place was kind of odd in that there were no bright colors so to speak. While it followed the normal designs of things of this nature there was nothing to suggest this was meant to be a fun place for the whole family. I'm thinking it was meant for golfers to practice their putting skills even though there were some odd twists and turns like the normal putt-putt golf places have. Needless to say, another cool thing to see if you like abandoned and forgotten things.

I wanted to try something new on my blog. I bought a cheap dash cam and carry it with me everywhere. I decided to document my day so y'all would have a clue of what happens. So you know, a normal day is about 14 hours and around 400+ miles. This past Saturday started at 4:30 AM and ended about 7:00 PM that night. By the time I made it home I had added another 488 miles to my old Dodge. A few notes about the video. For some odd reason it did not record my first three hours. It picks up at just shy of 8:00 AM. I banged it out with Windows Movie Maker and it's not the best (it glitches at every edit even though it looks ok in preview. (editing video can be an arduous task when you don't have stellar software) but it gives you a good idea of what happens on a typical day with me. Most of the places I go I knew about from mapping them out during the summer of 2013. There are plenty of extra stops for things I see that I missed on Google Streetview. Just a couple of side notes. It's cool to watch for a while but don't feel obligated to watch the entire thing as it does get a bit tedious. I will say, however, it is kinda cool watching it get dark as I wind my way back home.

I'm pretty sure this winter is all I need to finish gathering material for my book. I certainly hope so. 14 hour days take their toll and I'm not as young as I used to be. 

But on the plus side I still have my natural good looks and unwavering modesty...