Fleetline Sunrise

The primer paint on this fleetline in no way stops it from showing off it's classic curves at morning's first light.  I shoot a lot of cars but I have to say I am a sucker for the 1947-48 fleetline. Given the choice between a 2022 corvette or a restored 48 fleetline, call me crazy but I'm going the fleetline way everytime. 

Not Fade Away

I spotted this beautiful 1940 Chevy Deluxe Special convertible sitting quietly by itself off to one side at the Pomona Auto Swap Meet. It seemed a little out of place being surrounded by cars typically considered to belong to the Hot Rod genre. Exactly the type of cars which I generally do not photograph. This Chevy was a different story. While all the cars surrounding her seemed to be ready to emit a throaty roar from their lake pipes, she would probably rather glide serenely and quietly, all grace and elegance over the well-worn pavement. Her stereo playing an oldie tune as she slowly faded from view.

Pomona Sunrise

Arriving at the Pomona auto swap meet before dawn has its benefits. We drove over to the Pomona fairgrounds along very empty freeways and arrived just after 5:00 am. As we got closer, we began seeing lots of classic cars making their way to the entry gates. After paying for parking, we found a place to park not far from the entry gate and got our camera bags and tripods out of the car. It was bracingly cold outside and quite a bit colder than at home. Having attended this swap meet in the winter previously, we were well prepared and brought our scotty vest jackets to keep warm. For those who are unaware, the Pomona Auto Swap meet is a very large event that has been held for the past 47 years in Pomona California. It typically is held 7 times a year from 5:00am to 2:00PM on selected Sundays. I’ve heard you can find nearly any type of part for any type of car there. After having walked up and down a few of the aisles, I believe it. It is also a place for people to show off their cars. Sections for doing so are provided as well as places to display a car you wish to sell.

We like arriving early so we beat the crowds and are always there before sunrise in case it turns out to be a spectacular one like it was on this January morning. Even before the sun began peeking over the horizon, the sky to the east started glowing a yellow orange color which was promising and there were some clouds for the orange light to illuminate. The western sky was still deep in the blue hour when the sun rose above the horizon and the most beautiful orange colored sky quite suddenly lit up. Kathy and I returned to the cars we liked most that morning and began shooting some images. I really liked this 1940’s Fleetline panel delivery vehicle. I shot this from several viewpoints and was generally pleased with the results.

Why you want to leave me?

Kathy and I..., well mostly Kathy decided she wanted to go to the bomb club car show being held in the infield of the Santa Anita racetrack. She had attended this show at the same venue in prior years, but I had never attended before. In fact, It had been a while since I had gone to a car show. There just aren’t many where we live in south orange county unless they are filled with brand new mustangs and dodge chargers. No thanks, not interested. We previously lived in Los Angeles county in a town that was ground zero for lowrider and bomb car shows and I guess I took that for granted. Now I miss seeing the type of cars I really love. So it was with very little hesitation I agreed to acompany my wife to this particular car show. We arrived somewhat late, and the horse track's infield was packed with classic cars from the 1930's 40's, 50's and 60's. In other words, back when style was king. We setup our cameras and started walking around taking photos. We came upon this flamed 1947 red chevy fleetline. In truth I readily recognized it as a fleetline but I have to confess I'm basing my guess on the year by peeking at my wife's photo of this same car. You can see it here. In all the years I've been going to car shows with my wife I've learned one thing. If I happen to be tagging along with her and If I want the best photo I can get of any car at the show, I only need copy my wife's viewpoint for her shot. She has a great eye for composition, so I figure why mess around? I normally would just wait for her to be done and then place my tripod down in the same place and take my shot. Waiting was not an option on this day, the driver of this car was leaving. His engine was running, headlights were on, and he was just waiting for people to move out of his way before departing. I was silently urging my camera to quickly finish shooting the sequence of shots I would need to make this single composite image. I finished just in time. I looked over at Kathy and she said, "Copying my shot again huh?" The nerve.

Gathering of Fleetlines

The Blvd Bombs Car Club held a fundraiser car show at the Bobs Big Boy Broiler in Downey CA. We arrived in time for the spectacular sunset and found quite a few 1940's Chevrolet Fleetmasters and Fleetlines like these pictured here. The red convertible fleetmaster was particularly stunning. Convertable fleetlines are a comparatively rare sight at car shows so I try to photograph them whenever I see them.

East Facing Pontiac

Kathy and I have a habit of getting to car shows very early. This show, actually a auto swapmeet held at the Pomona fairgrounds opens around 5am. We arrived only slightly afterward and there were already thousands of cars in place. This ncluded the subject of this photo a pontiac with a very cool hood ornament. This was shot with my nearly 40 year old 100mm macro lens.

Kingman Arizona to California and Home Again

I drove 365 miles today and had some time to reflect on this long road trip.

Train Travel:

I had long wanted to take an extended train trip crossing several states and time zones. I never expected to ride four of the great train routes in one trip however. To recap, we rode the California Surfliner for 39 miles from Irvine California to the historic Union Station in Los Angeles. There we transferred to the Coast Starlight riding it to Portland Oregon's own Union Station a distance of 964 miles. At one point our train was running about an hour behind schedule so we thought we would miss our connection to the Empire Builder. Somehow Amtrak got the train back on schedule and we had about a 40 minute wait in Portland before we could board. We then rode the Empire Builder 2,206 miles to Chicago. After spending the night, we boarded the Capital Limited train and rode that to Washington DC's beautiful Union Station a distance of 594 miles. We covered a total 3,803 miles by train.

Would I make that journey again? I would, but instead of paying for sleeper cars, I'd buy a hop on hop off train pass. Having private accommodations on three of the trains was great especially with the coronavirus to consider. In a post coronavirus world, a train pass would allow me to see more places and sleep in more comfortable surroundings. It would also allow me more flexibility to change my plans during the trip. I'd love to stay for a few days in Glacier National Park for example.

Car Travel:

Renting a car and driving it the 2,785 miles we covered including side trips to Dayton Ohio and Santa Fe New Mexico was fine. I drove for all but about 10 miles. I wanted my wife to relax and take in the view and avoid the stress of driving. I noticed some interesting things. The highways in every state we visited are being expanded or improved. We saw lots of construction throughout the drive across the country. Drivers in Texas were probably the most aggressive while those in Oklahoma the most polite.

The Wearing of Masks and Social Distancing:

I noticed that two states stood far apart from the others when it came to not people not wearing masks or maintaining a social distance. Those were Illinois and Oklahoma. We saw lots of people in downtown Chicago without masks. When we stopped for gas in Springfield, we wore our masks and were stared at by the other customers. I only saw the gas station attendants wearing masks and they all had their noses exposed. In Tulsa and Oklahoma City we had similar experiences. We always wore our masks when we left our sleeping compartment on the train or left our rental car. We also took care to maintain a social distance from others.

Navigating Route 66:

As mentioned on a prior post, navigating old Route 66 was very difficult. I noticed in many small rural towns, many intersections had no street signs whatsoever. Route 66 signs were more often than not missing and instead another street name or highway number was displayed. Using the GPS unit we purchased for the trip was of limited usefulness as it typically wanted to guide us to the fastest route which was rarely Route 66. We also saw sections of Route 66 which were just closed for maintenance or permanently shut down, requiring us to resort to the interstate. I think better planning on my part is the answer here.

Would I Do It Again?

So after 6,588 miles, was it all worth it? Were this two weeks well spent? Absolutely! The most enjoyable thing was spending time with my family. Long, unhurried conversations with my brother-in-law were great and we laughted a lot. We all kept seeing interesting things and had the time to stop and look if we wanted to. I also got reacquainted with my camera equipment. I definitely packed too much stuff. I also pushed myself to meet and speak to more people. I found ready smiles and nearly everybody who asked "Where are you going?" seemed amused at my pointing vaguely at the western horizon as I explained "That way!" I loved not having a set schedule, not knowing in what city we would sleep in or where we would have our next meal.

Conclusion:

Coming home today, after following a long winding ascent, we crested one final mountain and found ourselves high atop a desert plain with the road now ramrod straight, descending and stretching out unbroken to the horizon. Not one cloud marred the sky, and we knew we had returned to the place we had started, California. While I'm glad to be home, I'm sorry this great adventure is over. For now, I'm too tired to post new photos. I'll add them tomorrow. 

1948 Chevrolet Fleetline and Point Fermin Lighthouse

About 6 or 7 years ago during my vacation from work, I attended a car show at the seaside town of San Pedro, California. The Legends car club was hosting their yearly big event at Point Fermin park. Roll in was scheduled for 7am but we arrived around 5am and found about 50+ cars waiting in the dark to be admitted. The organizers recognized my wife from her attending other events and they kindly granted us both early admission. We walked around the park and found the host club member's cars parked in some prime spots. One of those was this pristine 1948 Chevrolet Fleetline located right in front of the historic Point Fermin Light house. With the moon rapidly setting and the blue hour fading more and more by the minute, Kathy and I didn't waste time. We setup our tripods, cameras, remote shutter releases and started shooting. Later that morning there were thousands of people walking around the park and taking photos the way we like to take them became impossible. That was ok because by that time we were packing up and making ready to leave with several hundred photos each saved on our memory cards.

Mission Inn Grand Courtyard Overview

Here's another old vacation image from one of my visits to the historic Mission Inn Hotel in Riverside, California. This hotel is very large and consists of one main multi-story building. The architecture is California mission style as established by the Franciscan Padres from Spain who founded 21 California missions in the mid to late 1700's with a goal of "pacifying" and bringing religion to the native Indians. Instead, their European diseases decimated the tribes who had no immunity.

Sunrise at the Mission Inn

I had just left my room at the historic Mission Inn and Spa in Riverside, California when I saw the sunrise looked like it was going to be spectacular. Althought it was still quite dark, the horizon was turning more orange by the minute. I went back to my room, grabbed my camera, tripod, expodisc white balancer, and off camera shutter release. I decided to shoot an 4 image wide x 3 image high HDR panorama. Each photo consisted of 10 exposures between -5ev and +5ev for a total of 120 individual exposures. The final panorama was more than 20,000 pixels wide and the color corrected file tipped the scales at 1.4GB in size. After taking this shot, I quietly walked around the property taking more photos until one of the security guards stopped me, asking if I was a registered guest. I produced my room key and gave him my name. He radioed the front desk. Once they confirmed my identity, I was allowed to continue taking photos so long as I didn't disturb any of the other guests.