As seen some years ago on a cloudy day in New York State
Thanks for Viewing. Comments are always welcomed! M 🙂
Enforcement Squad
Category: Car
Resilience in the wake of Hurricane Isaias
About one month ago Hurricane Isaias brushed our area with 70 mph wind gusts carrying an abundance of salt water onto vulnerable trees and shrubs. Our Red Maple Tree suffered a significant loss of foliage facing the east side.
BELOW: One week after storm, 8/4/2000
Below: Normal view at this time of year, (from a previous year.) Original leaves would already have been losing color saturation.
Thanks for viewing. Comments are always welcome. Zoom in for a closer look. M 🙂 (The old car was included to show something more interesting than an old tree!)
In Quest of Punxsutawney Phil
February 2nd is Groundhog Day here in the United States (and Canada.) Although the tradition begs for a relatively large imagination, lore has it that this particular rodent, Phil, who lives just outside town, can forecast the weather. As it was my wife’s birthday, we added this somewhat iconic town, Punxsutawney, to our weekend road trip through parts of Pennsylvania. So, despite some issues with snow, we did join the throngs of Phil worshippers, and made it back home by nightfall. Oh, and he did NOT see his shadow, indicating an early spring! 
Thanks for viewing. Zoom in for a closer look. Comments are always welcome. M :-)
Wind Chill, and Snow – A Retrospective.
Not too much snow this season in New Jersey. So here is a look-back to Western New York State, seventeen years ago – January 15, 2003.
Above (and the next two pictures) …were taken just north of Hornel, NY
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Palisades Amusement Park – End of an Era
Retrospective Series – January 1972
Forty-eight years ago this month, the wrecking ball had begun its work marking the end of decades of fun and amusement at this iconic park perched high atop the New Jersey Palisades overlooking New York City.
Thanks for viewing. Comments are always welcome and zoom in for a closer look. M 🙂
Four Days till Solstice!
Will it be winter or summer? It depends on where you are! 
Four days prior to the beginning of our winter.
Thanks for viewing. Comments are always welcome and zoom in to better see the cars approaching from New York State. M 🙂
1920 Ford Model T Touring Car – Grandpa’s First?
ABOVE: My grandfather was the photographer, likely in the fall of 1921 near Suffern, New York, as he took his family out for a Sunday drive. That morning started closer to home in Guttenberg, NJ, as seen in the lower picture. Grandma, my father, (age about 11,) and his sisters, (8 1/2 and 7,) were the passengers.
Below: I suspect the “Kerosene oil carriage side lights” were an option, a nice touch.
The image above is from the internet and, as a antique, selling for about $70 today. The entire cost of the new car, was about $325. A similar restored version is pictured below.
Thanks for viewing. Comments are always welcome. M 🙂
(Feature image tonight: remembering Gene Cernan from the last lunar landing mission)
1958 Thunderbird – This Guy’s First Car
Seventeen came with the privilege to drive – a legal license for liberation, freedom, wondrous opportunities to explore with friends or a date, and a major lifestyle advantage. But it would take 20 months before I would actually buy my very own car, a 1958 Thunderbird.
Unfortunatly with this particular great looking coupe, I had quickly become owner of an aging, poorly maintined chasis with unsettling grinding sounds, clunks and bumps and serious (expensive) mechanical failures deemed likely. Bought relativelty inexpensively for $500, partly financed by my older brother, I parted unscathed with a slight profit a month later.
But for those few springtime days of happily cleaning and waxing …while ambitious aspirations and fanciful daydreams played along with its radio, this beautiful classic car was mine.
I wish I had it today.
As usual, click on the image for a closer look, and thanks for viewing. Comments are always welcome. M 🙂
Pine Barrens, Lost Railroad and Civil War
A few weeks ago, I explored a small but typical part of an abandoned single track railroad constructed in the early 1860’s. It transverses the New Jersey Pine Barrens, an immense area of 1.1 million acres of sandy soil characterised by oak and pine trees, cranberry bogs, blueberry cultivation and underlying aquifers. When new, these now forgotten rails carried some 17,000 troops to America’s Civil War.
Alien to the peace and tranquility of this warm afternoon, I could almost feel the undeniable apprehension of regiments of soldiers riding these very tracks towards the inevitable battles to the south, 155 years ago.
As usual, click on the image for a closer look, and thanks for viewing. Comments are always welcome. M 🙂
Tibbets Point Lighthouse – On The Road
Tibbets Point Lighthouse is located at the end of Cape Vincent, New York State, where the waters of Lake Ontario flow into the St. Lawrence River, and eventually to the North Atlantic Ocean nearly 1000 miles to the east. On a frigid winter’s night 25 years ago, I visited this starkly isolated, ice and snowbound place; its silently rotating beam offering the only solace on a cold lonely night at the end of the road.
As usual, thanks for viewing, and comments are always welcome. M 🙂