This week, Tina Schell of Travels and Trifles hosts the Lens-Artists Challenge and the topic is opposites.
There are two possible takes on this topic. I would like to say that I could offer a selection of photos showing opposites in the same image. And maybe I have some of those. Certainly a personal challenge for the future.
And so I’m going with what is for me the path of least resistance; pairs of images at opposing poles.
Sweet and pungent
The two photos below were taken at the Marche Jean Talon in Montreal.
A chapter in an occasional series of posts documenting a Spring 2021 road trip.
Continued from the post, Route 66: Diners, Twin Arrows And Trading Posts, (link here).
The van rocks and bumps as it grinds out of the dirt lot near Twin Arrows, Arizona. Lexi, my canine backseat driver is standing behind me, peering over my shoulder as we get back on Highway 40. She shifts glances between me and whatever we happen to be passing, tail swishing, nose twitching.
While Cora’s back at the motel, sleeping in, Lex and I are eastbound, on the way to Two Guns.
If you’re at highway speed and looking for it, Two Guns isn’t hard to miss. Unaware of the old stone ruins, though, they might flash briefly in the corner of your eye as an apparition from an era long past. You think to yourself, ‘What in the hell was that?’
It’s a momentary presence that flashes back to a scene from an old western; the climactic gunfight in the ruins of an old Southwestern town.
You might double back to confirm that what you thought you saw was what you really saw.
Highway exits? They’re like doors that lead to rooms off the main hallway. Exit signs convey the basics of what’s behind those doors. They tell you if there’s food: if there’s lodging; if there’s a gas station.
What exit signs don’t reveal are the sights, the stories and the lore locked in some of those rooms. Sometimes you just have to speculate whether or not there’s something worthwhile beyond the door.
But isn’t that the essence of a road trip? You see an exit sign, steal a glance off the highway and in the quickly waning moments before you’ve passed the exit, you either veer off or go on. In the case of the former you might stumble onto a rare find.
The latter? You’ll never know, will you.
In most cases you do pass by and press on. But the name Two Guns is compelling, a little bit mysterious, and very much Wild West. Hard to resist the urge.
The exit sign is simple. Exit 230 Two Guns ↗
Nothing else. Nothing hints of the tales of Two Guns.
The recent history of Two Guns (recent being 1920) is a version of the usual story of someone trying to make a go of it along the course of once popular Route 66 in the barren Southwest. Just another rendition of the many narratives that stretch from Oklahoma to the Pacific Ocean; of dreams, plans, success, failure and a final surrender to the onslaught of progress.
This week’s Lens Artists Challenge, selected by Sofia is Urban Environments (click on the linkfor Sofia’s take and other takes on Urban Environments).
Urban environments?
Well you’ve got your New York; your Boston; your Montreal; your Las Vegas; and your Los Angeles. All swell towns in their own right, and I’ve been to ‘em all..
But…
Give me San Francisco. And don’t call it Frisco, and really don’t call it San Fran.
There’s three routes in, and two of those require a bridge. The Bay Bridge enters The City from the East Bay.
The Bay Bridge dumps you into downtown and the high rise canyon.
View up Sacramento Street from Embarcadero Center.
