01 August 2010

The Ocean Road



Still the ocean rolled round this smallest sphere
Through an endless void, to fade and disappear

("The Ocean Road" / Runrig)



Ludlow; Essex; Santa Monica Beach. California. June 2009.


One night on my road trip through the American West last summer, I left the interstate and turned onto historic Route 66. I was too tired to continue driving and the world surrounding me was absolutely dark and silent. Not a light was to be seen except for my own headlights. I pulled over, parked the car and got out to take a look at the perfect night sky. I heard a coyote somewhere close to where I stood so I got back inside instead of taking a long exposure. The next morning I woke up to one hell of a noise... one of those endless freight trains was rattling through the desert and I realized I had parked just a couple yards away from the rail tracks.

Driving along Route 66 means travelling through the glory days of the long ago... seeing the remnants of dreams lived, and lives lost... the abandoned houses, burned out cars, empty beer bottles and coke cans, and a pair of boots left on a dusty fridge... memories and stories never told, soon to fade away like the twilight.

After this Route 66 experience, I found my way through the L.A. traffic until I had reached the shore of the Pacific at Santa Monica Beach. I took pictures of the pier before checking into an over-priced motel close to Redondo Beach.

Have a nice day.

- Dom

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

das foto mit den schuhen ist einsame spitze !!!

Dom said...

Danke sehr Manfred!

Brooke said...

Well written Dom :) Those boots btw... I may or may not have stolen them were I there in that moment. Just sayin :)

p.s. I don't even know what it's like to be in darkness that dark.

Dom said...

Thank you so much, I spend a lot of time writing those blog posts ;-)

That house had been abandoned for such a long time, nobody would've bothered.

Well, that kind of darkness is scary if you hear a coyote but you can't see him and you don't know if he would bite you if you didn't get right back in the car! :-)

Brooke said...

Haha, better safe than sorry right? :) I want to experience that kind of darkness though lol. I like feeling scared sometimes because it doesn't happen that much lol.

Dom said...

Yeah, me too, but getting bit ain't fun at all.