A Morse, of course

There are bottles and cans laying around the interior, some tied to fishing line like a half-assed alarm system.

You climb over a makeshift wooden barricade and lower your feet onto the interior floor, easily avoiding the fishing line.

There’s no way you’re going to stand over those dark little burrows, so for now you’re standing on a crusty sheet of particle board laying on the ground right in front of the doorway. There’s not much of a floor to the caboose, and the ground itself is pocked with rocks, trash, and hard-packed dust.

But what almost makes you jump backwards is the sound of beeping… the heck is that? Morse code?

These four lights on the wall even start to flicker on and off with the beeping code. It seems like a pretty brief message and while you try to decipher it, you look down again and notice a mist that’s been slowly rising up from the dozens of small burrows.

Oh. Those aren’t burrows, are they? The white mist reminds you of what dry ice does on a hot day, just dissipating into desert air like it never even existed. However, your nose and throat start to tingle and you start to feel like you can’t breathe.

You get out of the caboose much faster than you entered and clear the area while your head swims. Maybe the ghostly apparition was trying to tell you something?

Unleaded

Only 66 and 1/2 cents per gallon!

I love how in the old days, there were often less printed laws that presumed the customer might be up to no good and more printed laws reminding the customers to ALSO keep an eye on the proprietor!

Right above the GALLONS dial, you can see “Gallon and Sale indications must be at zero when delivery is begun, under penalty of law.”

Hm… Did old America used to have change for fractions of a cent, or what?

Regular

Vintage gas pump- the old “Gilbarco Calco-meter”, staring into the sun under the Orange Crush sign.

Made back in the day when it was impossible to imagine gas prices ever being higher than 99 cents per gallon. I never understood why gas was measured in a tenth of a cent back in the day, but you can see how this one was retired at only $.69 a gallon.

Dang.

Regular or Unleaded

Pretty sure I saw Louis CK hitchhiking across the street from this old gas station. He’s a great comedian, and I wanted to pick him up or at least take his picture- but this was a way cooler photo, right? Seriously, look at that Orange Crush sign! I mean look at that! I think someone threw a rock at it, even.

Keep the Shade In

Whereas the rest of the other windows in the little house in the canyon were at least partially broken, this window was completely intact.  To further add to the intrigue of this window was the lace curtain adorning the interior and obscuring the view of the demolished and deteriorating kitchen within.  This particular window is almost like a window into the past, and gives a glimpse into what this home may have been like long before circumstance forced its abandonment.

Weathered Wood

The desert sun and wind can wreak havoc on wood, but at the same time- there’s a beautiful quality to this natural erosion. The stark contrast fits the mood and the location uniquely.

Desert Paint

This is one of the more vivid scenes of industrial leftovers I came across in the Eastern Oregon desert. The years of sun and wind have seriously taken a toll on this old thresher or other piece of farm equipment. But at the same time, it’s pretty amazing looking, too.

Model: Saron Nehf

Saron Nehf is an amazingly talented individual.

Take a look through this gallery to see what I’m talking about. She went through about five different looks during this test shoot like a BOSS. From country-western pin-up to substitute schoolteacher, she’s got character.

Model: Saron Nehf
Photographer: Kenneth Benjamin Reed

Out of Time

Toma Amendolara and Mishalla Cannon, caught in the right place at the wrong time. Like nostalgia-seeking spirits from another era, they’re drawn time and again to this very bridge, exactly at five am, on July third, year after year.

That was where he’d finally proposed to her. At five am. They’d stayed out all night, dancing and promising their futures together, once he returned in a few months.

At zero six hundred, Toma was shipping out to the Pacific Ocean.

They never actually saw each other again, but they don’t forget their promises, either. You can still see them out on the bridge, every year around five in the morning, every July third. Sometimes she tries to stop him from going off, but usually they just linger and love each other.