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A while back I posted some photos from a VW bug and bus cemetery discovered by chance in the deep, dark jungles of central Pennsylvania (Penn's woods) way back long ago in September. I wasn't done with that site after that earlier posting, and am still not done with it after this one. It was a beautiful and bountiful booty of bugs fallen from grace. A place to lay one's bugbears to rest, to say peek-a-boo to one's bugaboos and leave them behind buried in the bucolic underbrush of the backwoods, until rust do them ravish. It is a place to dream about, to ponder over, to ruminate and reflect on, full of messages about the passing of an age, the ephemeral nature of man's creations, the nature which will reclaim all in the end. Ah, am I getting positively buggy in my advanced age ?
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The view looking out from the inside.
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Must have been a passing radioactive cloud from the not so distance Three Mile Island.
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Is there really a bug here, or did I just dream it ?
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Is there really a bug here, or did I just dream it ?
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Traces of the past.
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Has life ever left you feeling shattered ? All the king's horses and all the king's men . . .
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I've looked at broken windshields from both sides now
From outside in and inside out
It's windshield cracks that I recall
I really don't know the wind, at all . . .
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(Oh, and since this one, and the photo just above, both have some bits of reflections in them, perhaps they could count to be included in James' Weekend Reflections ?)
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Posts
51 comments:
You may have gone buggy, but you have definitely gone brilliant. What a magical post, Owen. The writing! Each image! The last image: oh, one of the best ever!
Hi Lydia, you get the earliest bird award, underneath some of those VW carcasses there must be some big fat Pennsylvania worms ?
:-)
A hundred thousand thank you's, hope you're having a fine weekend in the west...
Wonderful relics, photos and reflections.
Nature taking over will never cease to amaze me...
Great reflections, Owen! :)
Very poetic writing and imagery. I loved the alliteration and especially "until rust do them ravish".
Very nice.
It's a Bug's life.......
Thanks for starting my day with a smile Owen.
Have a good un.
Well it's obvious these little buggies won't be boogalooing down the road any more but their devolution just keeps boogeying on like a reggae woman. If a Volkswagen beetle falls in the forest, does anybody hear it?
Oh, how beautiful old cars. They have it for something, what new cars are not.
Did you know that Finland really is stored in the spring snow. In autumn it is being done to the ski trails for example, ski tube. Are we Finns most bizarre ..
http://www.vuokattisport.fi/showpage.php?id=116
Une épave échouée en pleine nature... Ces images sont bien romantiques et pas très écologiques !...:) J'ose espérer que l'éclat sur le pare-brise n'est pas à l'origine de cet abandon au milieu des feuilles et des insectes !
Une coccinelle bien triste je trouve... dans laquelle "résonnent" encore peut-être les rires des anciens occupants ! ! !
Et dire que la bébête à "Bon Dieu" est sensée être un porte-bonheur ! L'envol n'a pas été concluant !...
It's strange how wrecked cars can look so welcoming and homely...
The bug is dead. The bug is dead. Long live the bug!!
Le bois des coccinelles...
Des coccinelles qui ne s'envoleront plus...
la rouille continue son lent travail de sape...
Tu vois en ce moment Owen , après tous ces cataclysmes je me sens comme si j'avais perdu quelqu'un de cher..une inexprimable tristesse... indéfinissable..un sentiment d’irréparable, mêlée de sensations pas très optimistes et même pires que ça...
c'est en moi,et pour le moment je n'ai pas trouvé de manière pour évacuer cette pénible émotion...
out of contol..
Bon je suis passée te faire un petit coucou dominical et t'envoyer un petit rayon de soleil du sud...ça reste positif un peu quand même...:o)
ne vivre que l'instant présent...pour le moment il faut s'en contenter..
merci pour ton dernier message Owen...:o) tu es gentil..
bises a bientôt...
This is bugging me, Owen, but I can't remember why!
It has been my DREAM to drive one of these. I haven't given up.
Different,bravo.
Joy, many thanks ! Relics is a good word... reminds me there was a publication named Relix with Grateful Dead related stories which I imagine could be found inside a lot of VW vehicles.
Hola Lena, I somehow suspect that in the domain of nature reclaiming what is hers, we will have quite a lot to be amazed over in the coming years.... I'm really less and less persuaded as time goes by that our current models are sustainable. The hard part will lie in changing models...
Hope your new four footed friend is thriving ?
However did you find such a place? These images are priceless, the mingling of the old bugs with the overgrown foliage. I especially love the last 2 with the starburst in the windshield. I love how you get off the beaten path and bring back such gems! A good photo walk is just that...
Hello Alistair, many thanks good sir for the kind words... for some odd reason I started thinking about bugs in the brush, and that triggered a great bustling bevy of "b" words bouncing around in my overburdened brain... ooops, there I go again... best not to belabor such events...
:-)
um olhar para o futuro....
Hey Lynnespiration, yeah I guess their boogaloo days are done, but as for an ancient bug falling in the forest, does anybody hear it ? I think I must have heard their rusty souls singing a mermaid's siren tune, otherwise how the heck else could I have found them... can't even begin to calculate the odds against me having stumbled on these, but it was totally, TOTALLY improbable that I should have been there. Life is sweet sometimes.
So, how was the halibut burger ? Or was it salmon this time ? We had sushi last night... delishioush. Now if the Shaj would just come around with another bottle of shaki, we could get shloshed...
Dear Elisa, I think all that excessively cold air must create a frostbite like effect around the edges of the Finnish brain, which in turn causes such bizarre behaviour... but it is important to understand and respect cultural differences, no matter what the origin, right ?
:-)
Glad you liked the VWs...
Salut Jeff,
En effet, ce n'était pas une épave en plaine nature là, mais une bonne trentaine, et certainement pas très écologique dans le court terme... mais dans quelques siècles il n'y aura plus rien, si ce n'est que un peu plus de molecules de fer et verre dans la terre que normal, et dans deux ou trois millenaires, il n'y aura plus rien du tout. Je pense entendre des rires, d'ailleurs...
En espèrant que tu as passé un bon weekend, avec de la bonne compagnie, quelques bon repas, peut-être même une bonne bouteille ou deux sur la table ?
Ciao for now...
I'm curious as to how this came to be such an exclusive bug cemetery??? Is there a vetting process to dump your bug???
I'm often amazed, while traveling, at the numerous areas where I've seen rusted out old cars...I can't imagine taking an old car somewhere like this and just leaving it...I think it's the Girl Scout in me hearing our leader reminding us all to leave a place cleaner than we found it!!!
Hi Steve, entirely surprising, but it's true, I find them thoroughly inviting, welcoming, friendly, as though they are happy for some company and attention. But maybe that's just me projecting my enthusiasm onto their inanimate surfaces ? Nevertheless, the feeling of bonding is strong, when one slips into their long abandoned bucket seats, and places friendly, caring hands on the steering wheel and waggles the gear shifter a little, you can feel a thrill of pleasure run through their aging frame...
:-)
Myth ! YES, Long Live the Bug ! This Bug's for you ! The king of gears !
Bonjour Clo !
On va te nommer la reine des coccinelles, et tu pourrais t'envoler autant que tu veux...
Je pense que tu n'es pas du tout seule à sentir ce poids des évenements récents. Le monde entier est en état de choc et de deuil, et tout cas, tous ceux et celles qui ont un coeur au poitrine et non pas un bloc de pierre. Un deuil qui va durer un moment je craigns.
En attendant que ça passe, car il passera, il faut prendre plaisir dans des choses simples et saines... pour moi ce sont des photos de ces coccinelles belles et oubliées qui ont fait l'affaire hier. Aujourd'hui c'est un peu de ping pong avec les filles qui fait sourire.
One day at a time
We will climb
Back out of this hole
Take back what an earthquake stole
Laurie, let it rest, let it rest, the reason will make itself known to you... Maybe you just need to debug the software ?
:-)
Hi Priya,
Dreams are meant to come true... are there any VW beetles still running around India ? In a town the size of Bangalore there must be a few, no ? Maybe someone could let you borrow one for a day or two ? Or did you mean you'd like to try driving one of these bashed and battered shattered forest Bugs ? Even just in imagination it can be lots of fun...
From me to Me, merci...
Very cool shots! I've always liked photos of old abandoned cars. You've given the bug a sort of new artistic life. Well done!
As always – great photos and reflections.
Quand j'étais petite, j'ai passé de longues heures à jouer dans des épaves de voiture, mieux conservées que ces pauvres coccinelles. Que d'histoires nous nous sommes inventés alors... Voilà à quoi me fait penser ton post de ce soir. Et sans doute qu'il y a plein d'anges ici :-)
Une bonne semaine Owen !
I think it's all been said ...
Except maybe R.I.P. ... (Rust In Pieces?)
Seriously, Owen, those are wonderful shots. You've brought graveyard art to a whole new level!
Fantastic photos!
Mother Nature slowly reclaiming what is hers...
My favorite car ever was a 1965 VW bus (camper). I drove it everywhere. Great post!
Dear Stickup,
I don't know whether I found this site, or it found me, but that we did manage to find each other, as unlikely, as totally impossible as such an event could seem, simply serves to powerfully reinforce my longstanding belief in the miracles of serendipity. Hazard, chance, chaos, are strong forces in the universe. There could be others, but those three are already more than enough for this traveller.
One just has to keep one's eyes open, wide open...
Hi Paredes, a vision of the future ? Or to that effect ? Yes, most probably...
Chieftess, me too, it always amazes me when I find old cars abandoned in strange places, but I guess some of them reach the end of their trail, can go no further, and are too much trouble to haul off. These bugs left in the woods were on a piece of property belonging to a a VW mechanic, I imagine they had accumulated over the years as sources for spare parts, cannibalized such that other bugs might live a while longer... one could almost say they were the victims of a Volkswagen vampire... but I wouldn't go so far, he was a kind hearted soul, and very generously allowed me to visit and photograph as long as I wished that day, when he could easily have run me off and called the police about a trespasser, as I had sort of wandered in out of curiosity... (see post at end of this past December)
Hey James, glad you liked them, Pennsylvania is full of hidden treasures... as you know well by now.
Hi Dee, many thanks !!!
Merci Céline, suis content si ceci t'as fait revivre quelques agréables souvenirs d'enfance. Il y avait des épaves comme ça qui parsemaient le paysage où tu as grandi ? Quelle chance... des scènes de théatre à l'intérieur, où on pourrait voyager loin, loin, loin...
Hey Clytie, a thousand thank you's... "rust in pieces"... I like that a lot ! Seeking other levels is the spice of life.
:-)
Hi Pat, can join you on that, I had two VW buses, at different times, some of the best moments of my life happened around those travelling hotels...
Oh, not fair!! I'm NEVER here first anymore...gotta get back to work soon or I'll go nuts! (Again).
At the weekend I found similar sights and will post soon, love these old cars...flat out, going everywhere and nowhere and already been everywhere, man!
Makes me wonder what happened to the buggy I was driving in the 60's! :-)
Dear Mr. Owenslug,
Four years ago, Mr. Slug and I had the opportunity to purchase a car... Not just any car mind you, but a nice bright yellow, round-fendered and quite splendored buggler that is a perfectly sporty slug-juggler, taking us to and fro, fast on the go (it's a turbo, you know..) Beep Beep! Beep Beep! Out on the heath! The rolling common! Cruising the Oregon Autobahnen, you will find the Mr. and Mrs. with the sunroof open wide, slug grins glued on, tentacles to the wind, smiling happily as we glide!
Your photos! Your bug prose! A fantastic tribute....to our little toot toot! Vee double you VW sliding machine! Covered with leaves, even better!!! Bravo Sir, you've done it again!!!
Very Truly Yours,
Mr. and Mrs. Slug
the colours and textures are amazing, perhaps even more so than in the first pennsylvania forest series (i remember it very well!). i was gasping for breath when i reached the last two shots, simply gorgeous. and Lydia is right, the last one must surely be among the most wonderful of their kind...
Owen, I loved this post. I've a fetish for these little cars. I think it started when I was a child... and has stuck with me since. Poor cars remind me of the fragility of human emotion... and the fragility of life. And how we're here one day... shining and new... and old news the next. Sad.
Nevine
Whoa! Those bugs are covered in Kudzu. I didn't know it grew that far north. Cool flicks
Recover, reclaim, and recycle! Think of modern art! Maybe not for the Philadelphia Museum of Art but for MoMA?
Hang in there everyone, in these troubled times, we can just take it one day at a time, one step at a time, one breath at a time...
Thanks a million million for all your enthusiasm for these old bugs.
Your bug-brained host...
:-)
So that's what happened to the Beatles.
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