In which our intrepid hero, his hour come round at last, slouches towards Zanesville…

A number of subjects in this blog will no doubt interest only me.  One subject that fascinates me but may leave others wondering is the small standalone ice cream shack.  They interest me for several reasons, including the fact that no such thing seemed to exist where I grew up.  I never saw one until I was in college—there was a “Dairy King” in one of the small towns that lined the 550 mile-long stretch of nothing between El Paso and San Antonio.  They also interest me because they seem to me sometimes to be one of the last types of truly independent small businesses.  That’s kind of funny, because they are all imitators of Dairy Queen, which actually invented soft-serve ice cream.  Dairy Queen went on to be a huge chain, but these ice cream shacks still look a lot like Dairy Queen looked in the 1940s.

[Remember that you can click on the photos below to see larger, better versions]

This particular ice cream shack is Hayman’s Dari-Bar in Hebron, Ohio.

The guy in the white jacket couldn’t figure out why I was taking pictures.  He looked at me intently the whole time.

This was a nearby shed that struck my fancy.  I usually wouldn’t photograph an outbuilding, but that one overgrown side just tickled my fancy.

The texture of decay.

Not far down U.S. 40 was a dilapidated house that interested me.  However, after taking a few pictures I realized the real “story” was the absolutely huge tree in front of the house—it looks like a tree orgy.

For the barn fans among us:

This is a very interesting little ruined homestead.  Whenever I see a ruined building, I can’t help but imagine its history, who might have lived there, why it became abandoned…

In certain cases, parts of the history of a ruined building are more obvious than in other cases.

This large house is a beautiful specimen.  First, the vibrant pink the house was painted in makes it stand out very strongly; second, the aged nature of the paint job—especially the wear and tear on the upper stories—gives the building a sense of time and history.  The various signs and knickknacks add character.   

It’s interesting just how different the building looks in black and white.

You just can’t get very far down U.S. 40 without finding more old motor hotels killed by the Interstate Highway System.  These pictures are of the Sycamore Lodge outside of Zanesville, Ohio.  I searched on the name of the place and discovered someone had recently sold an old postcard of the hotel on E-bay.  I include those images as well.