Don Barrett (aka DBs travels)'s photos

Late winter afternoon in oil field near Fellows, CA. (Best viewed as part of California Central Valley set)

A few miles north and west of the I-5, near Santa Nella, Ca, is the San Joaquin National Cemetery. A new cemetery for military and veterans. It's farily remote, though every time I have visited there has been a funeral in process. Many of those buried are veterans of earlier wars, though many are also victims of the Iraq & Afghanistan wars. Seeing the families (often Hispanic), and hearing taps and then a rifle salute, are solemn reminders of what we are doing and who is paying the costs of these wars

The birthday cake being driven off the field. (This set of photos is best viewed by using the set labeled "Camp Pendleton, 231st Birthday Marines")

(This set of photos is best viewed by using the set labeled "Camp Pendleton, 231st Birthday Marines") In 2006 I was invited to join a friend and retired Marine Corps colonel, for the annual ceremony marking the birthday of the Marines. The Marines consider the Corps as having started in 1775 (the year before the Declaration of Independence) and thus 2006 was the 231st birthday. I thought the ceremony would be an interesting opportunity to focus my reflections on the role of the military in the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and also an opportunity to gather experiential material for my teaching on gender, social class, and power structures. I expected the ceremony also to be dramatically interesting with historical rituals, good music from military bands, large contingents of Marines marching in full-dress uniforms, and bleachers packed with vocally and visually patriotic civilians and other military. To be completely honest, as a veteran who is sympathetic to the military but also against the wars, I actually expected to have somewhat of a feeling of being in alien territory. I was just over half wrong. The ceremony on the field did consist of historic rituals, the music was quite good, and the overall experience did provide an abundance of material for reflection on the wars, gender, class and power. But, the large contingents of Marines did not exist, civilian attendance was sparse, and the atmosphere off the field was of a relatively comfortable, small-town, celebration among friends. ...... The following pictures in this set are a mix of photos of the ceremony and photos of the audience. Photos are generally in the order they were taken, with some minor rearrangement by the component of the event. Though I provide only brief commentary in the following, I hope that viewers will spend some time reflecting on two contradictions that are evident in these photos. One contradiction is simply the disconnect between the simplistic 'jarhead' images of Marines that are popularly held in the wider culture, versus what is visible in many of these photos. The other contradiction is only implied and not visibly represented, which is that the lives of the eager, hopeful, young men and women who are in the photos, are at the hands of much older and much wealthier civilian force that has no experience with the exigencies of military life or the rigors of combat. The birthday celebration is best viewed by using the set labeled "Camp Pendleton, 231st Birthday Marines"

Bixby bridge on CA-1 along the Big Sur coast, taken from the old coast route that was used before the bridge opened in 1932.

Actually, they may be seals -- I can never remember which are which. Taken at Fisherman's Wharf, Monterey.

From Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey.

The shops on Fisherman's Wharf seem to be the same tacky tourist traps that were there 40 years ago, or at least they haven't changed in character. The age of the tackiness actually adds to the charm.

Pigeon Point is between Santa Cruz and SF, on CA-1.

Arcata has a history of being dominated by farming and the lumber industry, but also as the home of Humboldt State University. As the other industries have faded, it primarily feels like a very pleasant, small little college town (Humboldt State only has 7,000 students). This is one of the two main streets in Arcata, on a Sunday evening.

Mattole Road, a very narrow, winding road, running through what is referred to as the Lost Coast, south of Eureka, CA.

The day I was there, the ground fog was constantly changing -- for some reason the fog and the design of the station (the columned porch and green shutters) reminded me of older coastal towns in Alabama and Mississippi

The train nearest is the Amtrak Cascades that runs from Eugene, OR to Vancouver, BC. On the lower right you can see an Amtrak engine which was for either the Coast Starlight or the Empire Builder.

Classic neon signs in Union Station, Portland

Albers flour signs on the Portland Albers Mill Building (no longer operating as a mill). Seen from the Broadway Bridge.

The Steel Bridge, taken from the Broadway Bridge.

Portland light rail leaving Skidmore Fountain in Oldtown. This is an airport trolley, which provided good service to and from the airport. A 2 hour transit pass ($2.05 in 2008) was enough to get from the airport to city center and then a bus to my hotel.

This may look boring, but it has historic importance. Quite a bit east of Twentynine Palms, on CA 62, is the former town of Rice. There are no remains of the actual town of Rice but there are remains of an airfield. Looking up the Rice airfield on the web revealed three interesting facts. One was that the airfield had been one of about a dozen airfields that had been used in the desert during WW II and then abandoned. A second was that the airfield was much larger than one would guess just based on the immediately visible evidence. The third was the reminder of how permanent is construction in the desert. Even though very much of the airfield was apparently unpaved, quite a bit of the unpaved structure remains visible -- particularly in the satellite view (see map). From the ground, the remainder of some of the buildings are visible and a large aircraft parking area on the north end. But if you compare other markings on the ground to recent satellite photos of the site, you can clearly still tell the location of various taxiways even though the airport was decommissioned at least 50 years before these pictures were taken. This picture is of the only visible paved area of the airport, a large pad with tie-down rings, on the north end. In the satellite photo, this is the white pad on the north end. Despite the featureless quality of these pictures, it is important to step back in time and reflect on what it was like to be here in the vast and empty desert, learning to fly and preparing for combat missions (and possible death) in WW II. This would have been the late afternoon view of many who were training for war. **** In January, 2013, plans were announced to convert the former airfield to a solar energy plant