---Fun Friday---

My day off started out great as my office got together for breakfast at the local pancake house which was our official Christmas party. We met at 7 am and stayed for an hour. I enjoyed it. While the rest of my co-workers went on to work from there, I had the freedom to run errands while I was in town. And then around 9 am or so I stopped at the home of my trusty sidekick Cuzzin Deke (Dick) and he climbed into the crew cab dually GMC with me and we headed west and north for a 6 hour round trip on the roads less traveled. It was to be a good day indeed. We went thru some of the area where my buddy grew up and he enjoyed the scenes from his past. The weather was sunny and not too cold and we soon stopped to take some photos of whatever we thought was interesting. Which in my case could be just about anything....:)

I liked this old abandoned gas station with living quarters and wondered how long it had been closed. How many travelers would have stopped there over the years? It looks much different from most of the ones I see. How long has it been closed?

Then I saw this main street at the same ghost town and was impressed by the silent beauty of days gone by....

Moving on to the next ghost town a shot time later, we saw this old house with incredible hand carved stone work at the entrance. Oddly it was a plain home otherwise and not fancy or impressive in other ways. Interesting---- 

A few more miles had me putting on the brakes suddenly and turning the truck and trailer around. Deke thought I was nuts when he saw what had caught my eye..........an old barn reduced to a burn pile just waiting for the match to send it away in a cloud of smoke. A sad ending to a once centerpiece of farm life and no doubt the pride and joy of the owner several generations ago.....

and then another ghost town image that I liked along the journey:

Then we needed to make up for some lost time and reach our destination so I kept moving on with no stops. We arrived at a shop where I bought a couple of old dirty 50 year old Chevy engines that we loaded on my small trailer and tied them down and had a good visit with the seller.

Then we headed south and soon stopped at a small town Dairy Queen where we both ate chili dogs and french fries. Good flavor at a low price. The same town had this nice old gas station-car dealership that I had photographed before but today I got a better image of it. One of my favorites.

We hurried home which was a long drive and when I arrived at PF my wife had 2 big pots of soup waiting on the stove and the big table all set with Christmas dishes. Soon her kids and grandkids arrived for supper and a gift exchange afterwards. We had fun and everyone was in a good mood this year.

About 9:30 pm the last guests had left and at that time an out of state friend pulled up for an overnight stay in our upper level home away from home......and Saturday begins a new adventure for us all. More on that later. Stay tuned.....