The valiant 1987 Chevrolet Blazer at barn RCB-AL-11. U.S. Highway. 11, DeKalb County, Alabama.
I began the Rock City Barns book project at Sweetwater, Tennessee on October 24, 1994 and completed it at Waynesville, Ohio on April 6, 1996, just in time to meet the publication deadline. In between I visited 15 states and drove 35,000 miles, most of them in this 1987 Chevrolet Blazer.
Using Rock City's old records of barn locations, I visited more than 500 sites and found barns in various states of repair on a little more than half of them. The only state where I did not find a barn was Michigan, and I later learned that I had been within just a few miles of one near Hillsdale (home of the prominent college).
The Blazer served me well, except for a trip to northern Indiana and Illinois in the fall of '95, when the transmission came to a grinding (literally) halt. I called my brother Steve in southern Indiana, who came with his diesel truck and flatbed trailer, loaded my Blazer, and delivered me back to northwest Georgia and a transmission shop. Meanwhile, I rented a car and went back to Illinois.
The transmission never seemed quite right to me after that, so I eventually sold the car to my garageman, who drove it for years. So I guess the transmission wasn't all that bad.
These are the barn painters' file cards that I used to find barn locations.
(I made the picture at the top to go with a magazine article I wrote about the Rock City Barns book project. Canon EOS A2 film camera on a tripod, triggered by a remote release.)
Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia
are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.50 shipping. My PayPal
address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail me a check to 8943
Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how
you would like your book inscribed.
Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/ Looking is free, and you might find something you like.
Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.
I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.
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