Observations, recollections, and occasional bursts of radical common sense about places that matter, books worth reading, roots music to nourish the soul, the times we live in, and whatever else tickles my fancy
I heard from a number of readers about how much they enjoyed Monday’s post of Carol Highsmith’s photographs of America. The beauty and evocative nature of her work captured many hearts, but others appreciated her outlook to “keep on the sunny side” as well as the generosity of her gift to America.
Kathryn Schulz reminds us that there is both a wonder and fragility to life. While many feel small and powerless in the face of that reality, it is also easy to feel amazed and fortunate to be here. Carol’s work helps us feel amazed and fortunate. With that in mind, I decided to post more of Carol’s photographs today. Enjoy another appetizer from what I promise will be a long and delicious feast!
Amazing landscapes, from coast to coast
Light streams into a “slot canyon” near Page, AZ
Hawaii’s Volcanoes National Park
Maine’s rocky coast
Utah’s Arches National Park
Spectacular Yosemite Falls, Yosemite National Park
California’s Pacific coast
Unspoiled north shore of Hawii’s Oahu Island
Scenic view from the Seward Highway in Alaska’s Chugach National Forest
Dusk shot of South Philadelphia’s famous Geno’s Steaks advertising the city’s Philly Cheesesteak
Contestant and owner at the annual Weiner Dog Races sponsored by Main Street Charleston, WV
Store window at Holden’s Hardware in my hometown of Murfreesboro, TN
A block of Main Street that includes the 1886 Beaumont Hotel in Ouray, CO, an old mining community (pronounced “you-RAY”) high in the San Juan Mountains
Main Street in the Flushing neighborhood of the New York City borough of Queens
Roadside America
“Cadillac Ranch” along Old U.S. Route 66 outside Amarillo, TX, where visitors are encouraged to bring along a spray can to add a touch or two to the unusual public art installation, keeping the overall look the same over time, but with daily changing details
A beer-drinking, guitar-playing “Muffler Man” cowboy at the Copperhead Road Bar in Colorado Springs, CO that has nothing directly to do with automobile mufflers, but is inspired by a series of large, molded fiberglass sculptures that were placed as advertising icons in the early days of travel across long-distance, two-lane highways
The Prehistoric Gardens in Port Orford, OR, an old-time roadside attraction founded by amateur paleontologist E.V. Nelson, that opened in 1955 but continues to transport vacationers through an ancient rainforest in which lurk 23 gigantic dinosaurs
Remembering our heroes
We can purchase photographs through Carol Highsmith’s America Shop. We can also do what I’ve done here: simply pull them from the LOC archives.
Vietnam Memorial, Washington, DC, on Memorial Day
A life-size bronze statue of African-American civil-rights stalwart Rosa Parks, sitting on a bus bench, the focal point of a plaza at a Dallas Area Rapid Transit, or DART, station in Dallas, TX
Immigrants, who helped build America, are remembered in the Immigrants statue, erected outside the Harrison County Courthouse in Clarksburg, WV as part of the celebration of the city’s bicentennial in 1985
The Civil Rights Memorial at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, AL
Edmond Pettus Bridge located in Selma, AL, where on “Bloody Sunday,” state and local lawmen attacked marchers with billy clubs and tear gas and drove them back into Selma
Daniel Chester French’s “Seated Lincoln” at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC
Gathering together
An array of pies for sale at the “Back to Church Sunday” festival, organized by the nearby St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, on the grounds of the New Hampshire state house in Concord
Mummers at the annual New Year’s Day parade in Philadelphia
University of Alabama Spring Football scrimmage where 92,000 football fans attended what amounts to a practice
A street band on Bourbon Street in New Orleans’s French Quarter
Monumental architecture
Stained glass in the San Francisco Neimann Marcus store
Mount Washington Hotel, Bretton Woods, NH
George Peabody Library, Baltimore
Lyndhurst, a historic site of the National Trust and a Gothic Revival country house within its own 67-acre park beside the Hudson River in Tarrytown, NY
And a few final views
“Road to Nowhere” view along Artists’ Drive in Death Valley National Park
Infrared view of a streetcar on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans, the oldest continuously operating street railway system in the world
U.S. Capitol, Washington DC as photographed from the Thomas Jefferson Building
Thank you, Carol, for capturing glimpses of the good in America.
MORE TO COME... 
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