The Trips Album 9

 

The other side of the previous post.  The top photo is a postcard.  As usual, when posting an album page, I show the whole page to show position, then the other photos individually.   Click on The Trips Collection in labels to see the rest of the album. and fair warning, it will be a while before everything gets put up. 

The Trips Album 8

 

It's been a long time since I've posted anything from this photo album.  The fact is, it's a real pain in the behind to disassemble the pages, scan, and then replace the page in the album.  Call it laziness if you want.  Anyway, this album is another example of true found photography.  I was walking down the street, there were a bunch of garbage bags on the sidewalk, and this album was sticking out the top of one of the bags, and since it wasn't covered in some sort of nasty crap I wouldn't want to touch, it came home with me.    

Chitzen Itza was a large pre-Columbian city built by the Mayans.  It's located on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico.  Chitzen Itza is translated as at the mouth of the well of Itza.  The Itza were an ethnic-lineage group that once was politically dominate in the Yucatan. 

Click on The Trips Collection in labels to see what else is up.  Fair warning, it will be while before the entire album gets posted.  

The Trips Album 7

 

I'm going crazy with this one.  For some reason, Blogger isn't working the way it has in the past.  Oh well, it is what it is.  The top two photos in the column are dated "JAN 74."  Click on The Trips Collection in labels to see what has been posted. 

The Trips Album 6

 

It's been a while. This is a really big collection of a traveling family's many vacations. Every time I post something I've got to take the album apart and then put it back together again. Needless to say, it's going to take some time.  So, we're still in Mexico, and it's almost impossible to see it from the scan, but the middle photo is dated "JAN 74."  As usual, I'm putting up the whole page to see positioning, and then a separate scan of each individual photo.  The top image is a postcard labeled "Uxmal, the middle snapshot "Nunnery" and the bottom. "Rounded Pyramid."  Click on the trips collection in labels to what's been posted. 

The Trips Album 5

  

This post is just the other side of the album page that I just put up.  The last post was frolicking in the ocean at Acapulco.  This one is ruins, ruins, and more ruins at Uxmal, an ancient Mayan city in southern Mexico.  And by the way, there is a misspelling in the caption.  It should be a corbeled arch, not "korbeled."  So, to see more click on The Trips Collection in labels to see what's been posted.  And by the way, there are a lot of pages in this album, so it will be a while before the whole album will be online.  

The Trips Album 4

  

Back to the trips album that I actually found in the garbage.  A few years ago, my computer died, and while the scanner wasn't affected, I lost the software and it was too old, so the manufacturer wasn't supporting it anymore, so there went the color correction setting.  Too bad, I'd love to see these photos closer to what they looked like when they came from the photo lab.  Anyway, a collection of family vacation photos from multiple locations and multiple years.  These are all from Mexico, and it looks like they drove from Los Angeles.  Well probably, since that's where I found the album.  Click on The Trips Collection in labels to see everything that's been posted.  

The Trps Album 3

 

As a rule, I don't publish text-only posts, but this is an exception.  Over time, I'll be putting up this entire album, and since the lady who put this album together typed out these four pages of reminiscences of her trip to Mexico, well here it is.  And by the way, I didn't crop out some of her text. There are a couple of lines where she typed beyond the edge of the page. Click on The Trips Collection in labels to see everything that has been posted and will be posted in the future.  That is if my scanner doesn't die again.  

The Bakersfield Embassy

 

I'm not sure why a restaurant in Mazatlan is the embassy for Bakersfield, but there you go.  The caption on the back, "In Los Angeles it's La Brea Tar Pits...in Dogpatch it's the Skunk Works.  In MAZATLAN, MEXICO it's Carlos Anderson's EL SHRIMP BUCKET (Hotel La Siesta).  Nightly entertainment. Mexican-American-Seafood-Patio Bar.  Carlos Anderson and Chuy Juarez, Owners."  It's still in business.  There's also a brief written message, "From Bueno Amigo, Sandy."  

No ICE in Sight

Yes, I know.  The world is very different now from when the original photograph, the basis of this card, was taken.  Still, it's nice to remember that there was once a trolley that connected El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Mexico.  People used it to shop, eat, work, and visit family.  Not a bad way for two neighboring countries to get along.

The Wall

As I understand things, we may be building a wall on our southern border at some time in the near future.  Stamped on the back,  "Foto Ruciger 28.IV.51 Mexico D.F."  Also dated, "IV-26-1951."

Cinco de Mayo

Contrary to what many Americans think, Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day.  That's September 16. 1810.  Cinco de Mayo commemorates the victory of Mexican forces against a far superior French invasion force on May 5, 1862 at Puebla.  Obviously, these photos weren't taken during the French occupation of Mexico, but they were very likely taken sometime during the Mexican Civil War that lasted, more or less, from 1910 to 1920.  It looks like the building in the second photo really took a beating.  And just for the record, in 1916 Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa  attacked Columbus, New Mexico when he was sold defective ammunition by American arms dealers, so maybe this photo was taken in New Mexico, rather than old Mexico.

Indiana Harbor Postcard

It's not surprising that photos with a Mexican connection end up in Los Angeles, but Indiana?  It doesn't read on the scan, but there is an embossed studio mark on this postcard.  "ATLAS STUDIO 3517 MAIN ST. INDIANA HARBOR, IND."  Indiana Harbor is a man made harbor and ship's canal on the southern shore of Lake Michigan, near East Chicago Indiana.  My bet is that these three men were members of a ship's crew, traveling through the St. Lawrence Seaway, all the way to Lake Michigan and the Chicago area.  When this photo was taken, Chicago and Gary Indiana were both major industrial centers, receiving raw materials from all over the world, and shipping out finished goods.  What better way to show the folks back home the great adventure of world travel.

Just so you know, mere coincidence yesterdays post from Michigan City and today's from Indiana Harbor, just a few dozen  miles apart.   I've owned this card for a couple of years buying it from a local antique mall.  The Michigan City card came from a lot purchased on eBay, just a few months ago.  Actually, that purchase reminded me that this card had been sitting in my files.

Marketplace

Or sweat shop.  I can't tell.  There's a bit of Spanish in the background of the second picture.  Also English, so does that point to a border town like Tijuana or Juarez?

La Tourista

What other explanation could there be for this outfit?

Los Lobos Is Still In the Future

Dated "OCT  60"  An exotic vacation in Mexico, or was this photo taken here, in the United States?

Another Mystery Locale

Interesting things in both the right and left backgrounds.  On the left, there is a lady who looks like she's holding a Bible, so I'm guessing a church.  On the right, a woman who appears to be native American.  Maybe Mexico or the U.S. southwest.  If anyone recognizes the ornate doorway and can name a city, please leaven a comment.

The Flying Family and One Really Creepy Doll

When I was growing up in the sixties and seventies, magazines from Life, and Look to Popular Mechanics predicted that one day the United States would be a country where it would be common for people to own small planes, personal helicopters, and one day the flying car, capable of rolling down the highway and bypassing traffic with the quick flip of a switch that would deploy the wings. Well, I'm still waiting for my flying car. The horizontal format photo with all the people standing in front of a plane is dated "1932." The picture with the "GULF" logo is labeled, "David & Arla, Nogales, AZ 1939." Gulf oil was once one of the largest oil companies in the United States before it was bought out by ARCO. The four adults with the child on the wing, "Shirley, Wesley, Nogales, AZ 1939 Alice, Helen, Emory." Possible it's mislabeled, but there was a time when Shirley, was a far more common man's name than a woman's, so if Shirley is one of the men, the sex balance is restored. The little boy has a toy airplane as would be expected with this flying family. Labeled, "Aug 7, 1937. Robert-3 years. Rafer ranch." Please tell me that the baby carriage picture is a very creepy doll. If not, that's one very weird looking kid. Labeled, "May 1935 Nogales, Ariz." Nothing written on the trio of people, the man in the flying helmet and goggles the old lady and the other man, but stamped on the back, "GUARANTEED FOR LIFE THIS IS A GENUINE BORDER Fox Tone PICTURE. MADE BY FOX COMPANY, SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS. COPYRIGHTED 1927 BY CARL P. NEWTON." Nogales is on the U.S./ Mexico border and before the interstate highway was built it would have been one hell of a drive over dirt roads, impassable during the summer monsoon rains. Flying might have been the only real mobility these people knew.

Aloha Cafe, Tijuana, Mexico

One of the first things I did when I came west, back in 1980, was to go to Tijuana. There were still old guys with box cameras taking pictures of tourists sitting on donkeys. I've never been able to figure out why the donkeys were painted to look like zebras. Anyway, this picture was in another one of the photo souvenir folders sold by restaurants and bars. There is a date, 1946 in the background of the photo. Printed on the inside front cover, "IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE PICTURE, BLAME THE ASS." On the same page as the photo, "PICTURES BY GAETAN ARE SECOND TO NONE." There is also a spot for autographs and the name of the folder's owner. For other photo souvenir folder posts, go to the archives and go to 7/1/09, and 6/15/09.