Be Excellent To Each Other

The wagon rattled its way down the incline, a narrow lane that snaked its way through the forested pass. Two men flanked the wagon, another in the driver’s seat. They laboured under a slate grey sky, the diffuse light adding a dripping richness to the leaves of the autumnal trees, a violent blaze of gold and red. Hunger gnawed in their bellies, and they eagerly looked forward to their sundown rendezvous with the trading post vittles.

The sharp brittle crack of a twig snapping, sharp and distinct and from within the tree-line. Left of the wagon, one of the men sprung up his hand and shot a glance at the driver, who tugged on the reins and brought the wagon to a stop. The man unslung his Springfield rifle, tugged the wide brimmed hat tight over his scalp and narrowed his eyes in the direction of the trees.

The horses, grateful of the brief respite, panted and snorted, pawing the ground. A further rustling in the trees, branches that moved, bushes that shook; the man raised his rifle and squinted down the gunsight. A bead of sweat glistened on his forehead.

A man crashed out of foliage. “Hahwo!!” he cried in greeting, albeit in a slightly retarded mild Yorkshire accent, waving a camera tripod.

There was a blaze of gunfire.

***

Yes! Tomorrow I begin my two week holiday.

Pennsylvania, with the old heart of steel production Pittsburgh first, then the wee town of Bradford near the New York State border. Reckon I’ll go and see the Andy Warhol museum, and go visit the Church of Beer. Then hopefully I can cling to the remainer of the fall leaves display, which I increasingly fear I may miss out on as they have already hit peak colour a little early.

There may be some Civil War battlefield visiting, maybe a trip to Niagra and there will be a lot of small town Americana photography. Stephen Shore shall be my inspiration. I also plan on driking lots of American beer.

Hopefully I’ll be able to keep y’all updated through my auntie and uncle’s computer-ma-jig. Photos and thoughts will be posted in this thread, probably in an incredibly sporadic and tardy way.

Anyway, London and board games at my mate Martin’s tomorrow night, and then I fly out 12:30 midday Monday. Hoo-rah!

Have a fantastic time Pete, looking forward to seeing your photos.

Safe journey.

Have a great trip - very, very jealous

sounds good. Been to NYC 3 times, its the best place ever, we visited Philly while there last. Nice city, look forward to seeing your piccys.

What-ho! Just a quick missive...

So, been here five days now, with two in Pittsburgh, three in Bradford. Experienced two awesome lightning storms, which was ace, but unfortunately terrible weather has pretty much destroyed the fall very early here, so no zomg leaves shots coming your way. Plus everything is blanketed with grey cloud with periodic rain. However, it's set to clear tomorrow and be nice for a while with the strong possibility of nice looking frost. So hopefully I'll get nice moody wintery pics. There's a load of dilapidated houses round here which look excellent, and Bradford has a lot of small town charm. There's also a mystery house on the highway six miles from here which I passed in the night and is utterly terrifying. I've eaten out in a small diner and chatted with t'locals who all seem to know my auntie and uncle. In fact everyone knows each other here. Apparently you never tell anyone any secrets, or bad mouth anyone behind their back, as it'll be local news tomorrow.

There are bears, racoons, skunks, possums, porcupines and coyotes a plenty around here but I've not seen any yet.

My auntie and uncle's house is MASSIVE.

Howdy!

Get yourself in that spook gaff at Halloween.