Adventures with the Hatchback Hotel

02/10/2026

Hatchback Hotel: End of watch
Sad to report – On 10 February, 2026 the Hatchback Hotel was towed away one final time after a full decade of service. Purchased in May of 2015, it died one too many times in December of 2025 and despite repeated attempts to revive the old war horse – it’s time has come.
Final Odometer official reading show 454,836 miles on the 2005 Toyota Prius. Same engine still in it, still starts and drove up to the final ramp truck what a tough old amazing car it’s been.
It took me to California twice, Pomona and Glendora, same for Arizona, New Mexico, the MOAB in Utah. Memorable trips to the Bonneville Salt Flats, 3x, and countless drag races, nationwide. On more than one occasion, I’ve lived in that car for three months at a time, during racing season.
This car literally changed my life, beginning in 2015. All of my drag racing exploits between May of 2015 and up until June of 2023: all were attended as Adventures in the Hatchback Hotel! Many a unique meal were cooked, countless cups of coffee made with a tiny solo-stove.
Sam Hurwitz, I can’t thank you enough for talking me into buying this car. Parting with it was not easy. Long and weary, my road has been.
It’s filled my heart and fulfilled my dreams countless times. From Iowa Hog Drags, to Forrest Gump Point, to NHRA HQ, back to New England Dragway.
My wallet is empty but my heart is full!
Thank you old friend, you made Tom McCarthy Photography possible. I do not know what the 2026 season will bring. I hope to attend at least 4 national events this season. Two of them will be Sept & October AMRA events. All else is unknown at this time.
But whatever it is, we will deal with that too!
TMc Special than ks to Matt Runyon and his crew for keeping me on the road for thousands of miles! THANK YOU!

12/17/2025

Life Lessons on the Road: December 2025

December is NOT the time of year to take long distance car trips across the Great Divide in a Prius I assure you. But you never know what lessons you'll learn until you step out of your comfort zone. Adventure begins out there on the edge, get after it I say.

Here's a few new things I've recently learned via my latest “Adventures in the Hatchback Hotel.”

You can pre plan all you want. The road will still give you what the road gives you. Smart planning is both helpful and necessary. But reality always has a say my friend. Let's take day one of my cross country trip for example.

I watch weather patterns across my travel path for an average of 5 days before I depart. The final 48 hours are when I decide exactly which travel route might be safest.

While I was semi confident I'd chosen wisely this time, the Arctic cold front tumbling down across mid America had me concerned.

Driving a Prius into a snow storm is about as smart as trying to roller skating in a room full of marbles. Don't do it.

On the morning of my departure, I'm waiting for a minor snow storm to pass. It decides to linger… I delay 2 hours, but no change, so off I go. I didn't put four snows on for no reason. Time to try them out. Seven miles from home, first skid. Manageable, but buyer beware.

My next seven hours go exactly as planned. Geographically I was exactly where I needed to be on I-81. I stop and reference my radar and weather maps.

My pre plotting told me Mid America throughout Ohio Valley had precipitation followed by an Arctic blast of sub zero coming in.

I knew better than to try and tough that out. So I took the southern route. But I didn't plan on the Arctic Blast getting down south before I did.

Let me tell you, trying to sleep in a car, not running, in 12 degree weather was not fun. Daum. My coffee in the cup holders was just about to go solid when I woke up in the rest area.

FYI: many states have laws about not letting cars idle overnight. Careful with that.

So I awoke to press on, gas up with chattering teeth, and meet the day. Once I got to I-40, I knew I'd get below the weather pattern, and I was rightfully rewarded. Safe travels, warmer temps followed.

Two days later, I make it to Colorado and man I could not wait for that Love's truck stop hot shower. BTW, this one was 18$ and I've been charged up to $24, but that's another story.

The next lesson hit when I entered the shower stall and prepared to wallow in the beautiful hot water.

I had no idea my shampoo in my go bag was still frozen from my overnight sleep in the rest area. I had to thaw out the once liquid shampoo and heat up the mini travel size shave cream, before use. Still, it was a great shower.

Lesson learned: keep gear warm. For the record, my coldest overnight in a tent was 9 degrees - in the tent. I had a mini thermometer on my sleeping bag zipper.

In the military they teach us: boots off, bottom of the sleeping bag. M-16 (A2) stays in the bag with you. And I'll tell you, there's just no way to get comfortable, zipped up in a winter US Govt sleeping bag with an M-16 between your legs.

Travel will always bring challenges and new learning experiences. Amazing sunrises and stunning sun sets. I can't count the number of star filled nights I've stopped on an interstate, just to photograph and greet the stars.

I've been stranded roadside too, more than once.

Life is amazing, when you live it. Don't wish you did. GET AFTER IT!

Thank you to all who've helped and inspired me. You are many. I am eternally grateful. I mean that.
TMc.

04/04/2025

Hatchback Hotel 2025
Who do you really work for?

4 April 2025, as I sit in the driver's seat in the Hatchback Hotel II, awaiting my laptop to warm up, I find find myself answering the question: Who do you really work for?

In my circumstances, being as they are, this morning I am lakeside, two poles in the water, not a fish in sight. But as my buzz box, warms up, I'm reminded, I work for me, and there's no place I'd rather be, when it comes to the four letter word - work.

I don't care what you do for work, it's stll a four letter word that drives many people nuts. I happen drive frequently a lot, and I am nuts, so this works for me.

Fresh cup of the finest gas station coffee, my pocket change can afford. Some Canadian night crawlers, tarrif certificate optional, life is better when fishing. Trust me on that one.

I will not be setting any distance records for miles traveled this year in 2025. But I might set new records in the amount of smiles generated this season. I'll take that as a win, any day.

For the first time in 8 years, I am no longer obligated to a specific work schedule. My work, my life direction and pace is now 100% by my hand. I own this more now than ever before.

Let's see what the next 10 years brings me, if it's my fate to get that far. If I do or I don't, I worry not. I've had an exceptional 70 years to date.

Be careful and thoughtful of who you work for and what you do for work. I've seen first hand what stress will do to people.

If you do what you love, and love what you do, it's not work, it's a labor of love. Choose wisely what you do for work. You only go this way once. Be who you are, not what people want you to be.

It's your life: live it! Who do you really work for?

04/11/2024

George Babor, has been a drag bike racing pillar of our community for decades. He recently suffered a bad crash at a racing event. Please support this man who has supported our sport for much of his life.

I'm Jon Baugh, my friend of almost 60 years was seriously injured today in a motorcycle racing accident in Vald… jon baugh needs your support for George Babor

03/06/2024

In February, 2024, it was quite the adventure to drive to Bradenton Motorsports Park and shoot the PRO Superstar Shootout, for Motorhead Magazine. Story and photos in the current issue of Motorhead, 3 pages. March 2024 edition.

02/06/2024

https://dragillustrated.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-inaugural-pro-superstar-shootout/?swcfpc=1

A historic moment in drag racing history is set to take place this week with the inaugural running of the S**G Power Equipment PRO Superstar Shootout presented by Johnson’s Horsepowered […]

10/14/2023

Adventures in the Hatchback Hotel: The Great Tulsa Test of 2023

The f-up fairy has finally found me. My turn for a gut check. Major mayhem ensued Wednesday night, October 4th, 2023 in the Hatchback Hotel-2.

I had just driven 1,748 miles to Tulsa Raceway Park, that night, for a special event and when I arrived, so did a major storm cell out of the Texas Pan Handle.

Once the storm built to full force in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I had to hide my little car from the high winds. The HBH-2 was getting tossed about like a rag doll. I was parked in the darkness, behind the tower when all lights went out. It was now blackness and the storm was raging.

My car was rocking like a dashboard Hula-doll at 60 on the freeway. Fearing my car could get flipped over by building high winds, I drove deeper into the parking lot, and wedged my Hatchback Hotel between two 18 wheeler big rigs, to shield it from the high winds. Out in the open behind the Tulsa tower, my car was definitely in jeopardy, so I drove my car in total darkness to where I thought it would be safer.

What I didn't know was this location was the lowest point in the racing facility pit area. And it was quickly becoming a catch basin. It was pitch black out and my windshield looked like a fire-hose was pointed at it. There were lightning strikes-per-minute landing in the area, this storm was no joke.

Once I was in a safer location, or so I thought, I crawled into my hatchback to look for leaks and didn't see any. My hatch in HBH-2 has an occasional leak in the L rear area. So being as I was in a deluge like standing in front of an open fire hydrant, no better time to look for that leak. I crawled into the rear hatch area with a tiny flash light and started carefully examining the rear deck lid & found nothing – no leak there.

I did soon find one, but not where I expected. I had no idea the waters around me were rising rapidly like flooding in an elevator. Can you imagine being in in elevator filling with rising water? That’ll get your attention!

I started hearing loud popping noises and thought a transformer on property was shorting out. The sounds built rapidly. It sounded like a belt fed machine gun and I was fully aware, no one was out in the raging storm with an M240B in that biblical deluge. Unbeknownst to me, the popping noises were my exhaust notes being drowned out by the rapidly rising puddle now becoming a parking lot pond, surrounding my car.

My thoughts were; fearing a track electrical transformer might be freaking out, I decided I should try to find it and help avert impacting the weekend major racing event. So I decided to go looking for damage to try and head-off a disaster for the track. Dumb guy made the decision to go drive around the parking lot inside the pits looking for trouble in the middle of a raging storm. I didn’t get far, lol & I sure found trouble.

From the rear hatchback area, I now slid forward into the driver’s seat from the rear hatch. This requires some creative contortionist like manoeuvring while in total darkness and at 69, it isn’t easy. I plopped down into the driver’s seat. There I suddenly became aware that I was instantly calf deep in water in the driver's compartment!

Realizing this my initial thoughts were, my car is somehow still working but….
My camera gear and my laptop, which are always secured on the floor where they can't go flying in the event of an accident: HEY, my floors are flooded! S**t!

I knew this was a very bad scenario. I was shocked to see the car was still running at idle, so I backed quickly out of the rising ginormous puddle, (low spot in the pits) to higher ground. (Base of the Tulsa tower)

Somehow the car remained functional. Lots of pretty new creative warning lights appeared on my dashboard heads-up display suddenly appeared. I could smell electronics frying (audio-amps, under the seats)…but the car was still somewhat functional, at least for the time being.

Once I backed up to the tower on higher ground, I opened the car doors, in the pouring rain storm, and began bailing inches of water from my car's full-up interior floors. But first I hoisted my camera bag up onto the passenger side seat. Then I went for my soaking lap-top bag and put the lap top on my dashboard (real smart dummy) on my dash board to drain.

When I travel, I keep my camera gear and my laptop secured on my passenger side floor area, wedged under the glove compartment. I do this because in the event of a crash, this prevents my camera gear from becoming a missile and injuring me and further damaging the equipment.

But being on the floor and the floor being now a foot-bath: this was disastrous. 60% of my camera gear was water impacted and my laptop and one of three external HD were destroyed. One camera and one lens survived and were functioning by morning. Thank you God!

After I got the gear up out of the water and onto my dashboard, I began bailing out my car interior like a leaky row boat. There were inches of water on the floors to contend with.

The track tower was unlocked for the Press Room, so I spread out a towel and began drying out my gear inside the building as the storm began quickly winding down, just as quickly as it arrived.

This was devastating. Drying out the laptop, proved fruitless. My external hard drives might survive, might not. With my cameras and lenses draining, I parked the car at a down-hill pitch, with all doors open - draining. I did this for three days straight.

When Mitch Brown arrived the next afternoon, he brought me a shop-vac that took another gallon of brown eck, out of my car. The strong Tulsa sunshine on Thursday, the next day, helped immensely. My car parking spot looked like a homeless encampment on wash day. All my gear was hanging on the nearest chain link fence. Thank you Tulsa Raceway staff for tolerating me on Thursday!

In the Press Room, all camera gear was laid out on clean dry surfaces. I kept my laptop overnight hanging on the back of a small refrigerator, using the heat from the heat exchanger and exhaust fan, in an attempt to save the laptop. Did the same with the camera bodies. One out of two cameras survived. In time, we will see what becomes of all this. The laptop is scrap. HD data was recovered.

One of my greatest inspirations in dealing with this sudden sh*t-show is a US Army former Delta Force operator who had one leg blown off by an IED in "The Stan." He prefers to remain anonymous, true to his Delta teammates. I honour that and always will. The man is a great inspiration to me.

During a mission in Afghanistan, after his body was trashed by the IED, he was flown to Germany then to Walter Reed in the USA. He stayed the course. He received a new leg and continued training. He remained in the US Army, never even thought about out-processing. He was and remains to this day, a fully committed “Teams” guy who refuses to quit: at anything. He fully recovered and returned to full duty with 1st Gp Special Forces A, Delta. There were no waivers signed off, no whining- he simply doesn't believe in can't. Neither should you.

That Sergeant Major believes in mission, purpose, and focus. I believe him. And that's why those words are tattooed on my R forearm. God bless the Sergeant Major who taught me this. You can overcome anything if you apply yourself. There is no can't. Find a way, remember your mission, make it your purpose to do what you do. Focus on that.

There are people who have faced flood, fire and far worse than I did that night. I was very lucky, all things considered. My car is still functioning, one camera works and while I lost 2 of my 4 lenses, a lap-top, and one of three hard-drives, that’s small potatoes, all things considered.

I will deal with this issue and rise. Yes it sucks. But there's more and better ahead of me if I dedicate myself to what I started out to do: To bring art and racing closer together. Find new fans and sponsors for our racers and our sport.

Lost or damaged: Car interior often smells like Fido one day after being in swamp. Also: Canon 7D Mk II, Sigma 8mm fisheye lens, Canon 17-40mm Zoom, Lenovo Laptop. External HD 2Tb total loss, data not recovered, along with two years of edited photos, but I have the originals. I'm out about 5k of gear.

The good news is, I’m still roadworthy and I will have some minor help from insurance. By the grace of God, I'm okay and l count my blessings, believe you me!

The Adventures in the Hatchback Hotel continue, as do I. You all inspire me: thank you, keep going. Be who you are, do what you do.

06/15/2023

06/15/2023

June 2023 HBH-II Begins

As of 12 June 2023, the life of the HBH-II or Hatchback Hotel 2 has begun. On May 16th, the original Hatchback Hotel suffered a total ABS system failure while in heavy stop & go traffic in I-90 in Erie, PA. The car today remains in an auto repair shop parking lot, motionless, since it’s delivery there on 1 June 2023.

Knowing the HBH was in dire straits, and with over 439-K on the odometer, a second 05 Prius, identical year-make-model was acquired. It was an act of Providence for me to have the Hatchback Hotel fail when it did, as it did, in slow motion traffic, and a total systemic brake system failure didn’t result in a major catastrophe.
Likewise, for me to be lucky enough to find a reasonably good shape clone, albeit red, and receive the help needed to acquire that car AND get the HBH trucked back to Runyon Auto was also nothing less than the planets all lining up in my favor.

Frank Capone saved my ass roadside within 24 hours of me being stranded in Erie, PA. The AMRA was there to put me to work, and that work gave racers what they needed and the funding for the rebuild of the legendary HBH began.

It was a Circus Act that would have made PT Barnum smile, to get the trucking freight arranged and thankfully Jesse Treveloni came through for me to make that happen. It took from May 16 to June 1st to get the car back to a repair shop. Hopefully it will return to duty ASAP.

Until then the new HBH-II is now on the road and it’s first road trip was to New England Dragway for the soggy New England Nationals. With a dashboard full of warning lights on, the car made the over 200 mi trip without incident, except for the high anxiety driver, frequently looking at warning lights of impending doom. That was four hours of driving I didn’t need but it had to be done. There were two T/F bikes at Epping, my home track, and for me to not be there was unthinkable. Rain or no rain.

After the Epping debacle, error codes told me what I needed to address and all I was capable of doing, I did. This managed to eliminate all the red-car’s problems except the big one triggering the Red Triangle of death, which remains on. This one is above my pay grade (LOL) and hopefully, if the car makes it to AMRA, Indy, this can be addressed, properly or I have a long-azz walk from Indianapolis, IRP to Boston.

Actually, getting the HBH-II on the road was no small feat. Without the sacrifice of my beloved Canon 600mm lens and through the 10+ hours of efforts by Westbrook Insurance to get my title cleared: if not for the efforts of others, I would not be in Bowling Green Kentucky, for this event, the Wally Parks NHRA Nostalgia Nationals.

The people who ordered art from me, bought photos and put me to work for you – that’s my Go-Fund-Me. It’s called work harder, work for it. Thus, we do.
Forward we all go… Tmc

05/19/2023

Adventures in the Hatchback Hotel, May 2023: 429,956 mi to date

Every road trip in the Hatchback Hotel, since the day I began my journey into full-time professional photography has brought me not only new levels of increased proficiency with my camera gear, but also life lessons to be shared with many. Thus, here we are.

Like there’s always some good and bad to surely come our way and test us each day. 18 May 2023 for example, I was up at 2:30AM and out the door by 3:06AM, heading for the latest AMRA event in Norwalk, Ohio with two cups of large black coffee, contemplating photographic ideas to be explored during the coming event. Oh the things I want to do!

Little did I know what the road had in store for me this day. I’ve learned various life lessons from my many miles and smiles in the Hatchback Hotel over the years. A staple of thought that never leaves me is: “Don’t get cocky sport. If you think for one minute you know what’s ahead of you this day, don’t go thinking you know what the Universe has in store for you.”

A driving force for me is I have faith that hard work, good intentions and perseverance eventually pays off. Not that we don’t encounter the occasional pothole along the road of life, but for the most part; do well and things eventually go well. Surprises, well they are to be expected. Like the ones I encountered today.

After my 3am departure this chilly morning, it didn’t take too long to launch into my second cup of coffee. As the black gold was hitting the half-way mark, I found myself a few hundred miles down the road, well into NY, westbound on I-90. Before long, I stopped to answer natures call. After all, when you gotta go, you gotta go.

At this particular truck stop, and gas station, it was one of those annoying ones where you are west bound and the actual facility is only on the east bound side, so you have to pull into a lot and use a foot-bridge to access the shops and rest-rooms, on the other side of the highway.

Horse-hockey, as Col. Potter used to blurt out on episodes of MASH.

I noticed a large enclose trash area, well hidden, just after I reached the parking lot off I-90. So I conveniently parked as close to said refuse resort enclosure as possible. I then swiftly disappeared behind the nearest dumpster and proceeded to water the flowers. At least that’s what my dad used to call it when we were kids in the
60’s, while out fishing. My dad was, if nothing else, a practical man.

In my haste to disappear, I spied that someone, likely a trucker, had disposed of a single size memory foam mattress by the dumpsters and they left it in close to new condition. Nothing funky about it. What a gem! It was exactly what I’ve been looking for to replace my aging lounge-chair-pad, that I’ve been sleeping on for about six to seven years now. That pad is damn near as tired as I am. Mind you I’ve spent as much as 3 months at a time on the road in this car, more than once. So that pad has seen better days.

I thanked God for this sudden bounty and emptied the hatch area of my mobile hotel on wheels. Then in went the new-ish, mattress. I had to lop-off about 14” of the very dense foam to get it to fit in the hatchback, but by golly, this NY trash was a treasure for me this day. Lesson learned: be patient and keep working hard. Sooner or later, good things will follow.Ah, but while NY was good to me this time, a few hours later, PA had a surprise for me.

Just as I thought I was going to get out of NY without a ticket, I entered a very heavy traffic jam, just over the Pennsylvania boarder. A few miles into the Penn State I suddenly found myself in one of those “I’m glad I’m not on that side of the highway” type traffic delays that we all dread. Oh well, this one is my turn.

After close to 20 minutes or more of the occasional, “Oh good, we get to move about three car lengths” that’s when the bad part of my good day began. After inching along in traffic, I suddenly felt my foot going to the floor on my brake pedal. My dashboard then lit up like a fighter pilot witnessing an incoming SAM missile, inbound, with his name on it. The no-brakes shrill alarm chimed in too telling me to GTF off the interstate highway ASAP.

Conveniently, I was only traveling at about the speed of smell at the time, so getting onto the soft shoulder and limping to Exit 32, was easy pickings. Even under bad circumstances, God was good to me and gave me the easy out. This time.

Once I pulled into the Country Fair gas station, I checked for leaks, wet spots, wheel temps, and the brake fluid level was right where I checked it the day before I departed. I launched the obligatory internet WTF just happened, diagnostic research and found what looked like an easy out.

IF a Prius ABS warning light comes on, there is a work-around where you use a paper-clip, bend it just so, it becomes a jumper to mimic a test unit is plugged in for diagnostics, and if you do the right things at the right time during the car’s internal systems test phase, you can reset the system to it’s defaults by fooling the system. Which if you don’t really have a serious systemic problem, you are good-to-go.

That would have been ideal for me IF that had worked. But alas, I have no high-pressure application, which means my master cylinder is malfunctioning (likely) and that’s a job for another day by people with the right tools and skills to address such things.

During the overnight, at least I had a good night’s sleep in the Hatchback Hotel on a damn fine mattress. Tomorrow will bring whatever discomforts it will, but if all goes well, I will be at the race by tomorrow evening and hopefully, I’ll be track-side shooting for the weekend.

Adapt and overcome, that’s what we do, best we can. To the many who reached out and offered help, I THANK YOU. I hope to see you on the starting line before Saturday.

Tom McCarthy

10/14/2022

Adventures in the Hatchback Hotel, Summer 2022: Hog wash!

During the summer of 2022, I was hired to drive out to Humboldt Iowa for the 2022, Iowa Hog Drags and Nostalgia Reunion. Driving west in the Hatchback Hotel, from Boston, is always a long and interesting drive as one never knows exactly what one will find out there on the open road. I’ve been blessed to have crisscrossed this great nation of our many times and this trip in particular had its fair share of interesting encounters.
For openers, going to photograph a drag race in a corn field is a new experience for me. I’ve been to many drag race in dozens of different states here in America, but this was to be my first trip to photograph drag bikes, raising cane, in a corn field. I was as excited about this as I was intrigued. Not the kind of thing you see every day mind you, unless you live and work in Humboldt, Iowa or someplace similar.
I was blessed to stop at Jay Rogers place on the way out to the shoot & meet his lovely wife and son. Great people, the kind of people this great nation are founded on. Jay’s collection of old drag bikes and drag bike ephemeral was a sight in itself worth seeing. I suspect Jay’s been collecting drag bike memorabilia since the pyramids were built and he’s doing just fine. Might have his own museum one day. Great guy with a great family.
After a day or two with Jay, we trekked a few hours caravan style to Humboldt and as I was hoping, yes barbed wire fencing was abound at the race track gates, leading into the facility. No press, nor media room, not a 110 outlet in sight; but lots of corn fields and barbed wire. This track did indeed fit the picture in my mind’s eye of what I’d find.
Concrete, flat as flat can be and really nice, neighbourly folk ran the race and cared for the facility. It was neat and clean, the little kitchen under the tower served good food and hot coffee, a man could not ask for more at a race track out in the boonies. At night the starts shown bright, a gentle warm breeze made it easy to sleep under the stars.
The Nostalgia portion of the event was top-shelf. With Pete & Jackie Hill in residence, Pete’s Knuck, T/F bike on display and Glen Kerr with Double Trouble, this kicked off the weekend in style. When the Chantland’s showed up and rolled out the fully restored old Top Fuel double of Sonny Rout, well that stole the show. Oh my sweet baby Jesus what a beautiful motorcycle! Glen’s recreation of Boris Murray’s double was also breath-taking.
The racing was great if not heart stopping. Last thing I wanted to see was anyone go corn husking on a drag bike. But with the R lane asphalt only 30’ from an open, unobstructed cornfield, well let’s just say the inevitable was obvious. However, the big fuel bikes did thunder and the sight of a raging Top Fuel bike, wheel up, blasting down the 1/8th mile course, was a sight to see for all who attended. It was a great event.
On Saturday night, I managed to wrap up close to midnight and by my foolish reckoning, if I drove 20 + hours straight continuous to Monument Valley, AZ, I should be able to get there and do a photo shoot under the stars, the following night, sometime after midnight, local time. This was one of the dumber, overly ambitious ideas stuck in my brain I just had to try for.
If you’ve ever seen the Forrest Gump movie, if you recall the scene when he decides he’s had enough running and stops at sunrise in Monument Valley – well you know what THAT looks like. My goal was to get there in total darkness and shoot Monument Valley, under the stars, with the Milky Way as the centrepiece. I needed two things for that to happen: A dark sky night, no moon and no clouds. Would my twenty plus hour drive get me there in darkness? Yes, sometime after midnight for sure. Would the night sky and the clouds cooperate? Maybe. Only one way to find out. I filled in my GPS data and hit the road.
It took me 23 almost continuous hours of driving, stopping only when absolutely necessary to gas & go. This I did after driving to Humboldt Iowa and doing three days of shooting, I decide to do a marathon drive to the middle of nowhere in a 2005 car with over 400k on it. Every 225 miles I had to stop and add two quarts of coolant to it. Sometimes I’m not the brightest light in the room I assure you.
BUT I did make it. I arrived at Forrest Gump Point in Monument Valley AZ at close to 4am in the dead of night. Exhausted from the 1,200 mile drive, I pulled to the side of the road, killed the car lights and stepped from the car. Out into the darkness of night, I saw what I came to see – but no shot.
The darkness and desolation was all I needed it to be and through the low hanging cloud cover I could see the amazing star covered canopy only our universe can supply. But the low hanging and drifting clouds assured me I had zip to accomplish. The clouds killed it and that’s just how it goes some times.
With no quality shot possible and my body as tired as it’s ever been, it was near 4am and I needed sleep badly. I pulled off the road to a safe spot out of the way and hit the back of the Hatchback Hotel. I knew sunrise would most likely be spectacular, and that was only two hours away, so I set my phone alarm for 6am. A couple hours sleep would have to do.
When the chimes of the phone woke me, I sat right up and saw the sun already cascading down into Monument Valley and the colours were blazing! I whipped out the phone for a quick shot and scrambled with all speed to get the camera and lens for the job. In seconds I had it in my trembling hands and I began shooting.
I’ve said it a thousand times: no one lights like the Big Guy. God’s grace through Mother Nature has colours and textures we can only try to do justice to. Oh my: what a sight! Funny thing though, as a photographer I can tell you without hesitation that the very special amazing light that happens only during sunrise and sunset – it’s only optimal for a few fleeting moments, then the moment is gone. That’s it, show’s over. Daylight is daylight.
I did my job, failed miserably this time. More about this in my coming book on photography. After more driving and some sleep, I ventured on. When I began my drive back east, that’s when the fun part of this trip happened.
I was tooling along I-40, and along the interstate, I came upon a pick-up truck hauling a low slung trailer off in the distance. As I gained on the rig, it was misting a bit and I could see this trailer was built somewhat like a mini horse trailer, but very short, like 4 to 5 feet tall max. That looked most curious to me.
Another curiosity to me was every now and then a lot of liquid would slosh out of the trailer, like it was leaking something. That’s not good I thought. As I got closer to the rig, I could see shapes moving and then a large amount of liquid hit the highway pavement that sloshed from the left side of the trailer as I passed it. The grey and brown mist hit my windshield as my wide eyes made out the shapes of large HOGS in the trailer moving about.
I thought to myself, Oh, oh, that’s not just mud on my windshield. Great. I go to Iowa to a Hog rally and now I get Hog Wash. Well that’s just dandy!
I conferred with experts on this topic recently and Terry Schweigert, a farmer of note, confirmed for me what I suspected, “Yes Tom, the hogs get over 250 pounds before going to market. And they eat a lot, so they go a LOT, ya know?”
Pro Driving Tip: If you are on the interstate and see a low slung type cattle hauler & you are in farm country; pick a different lane and stay away from the hog haulers. Trying to pass them is a sh*tty idea. In fact you might even get pi**ed off, or on. Whatever.
Life in the Hatchback Hotel, oh the things I’ve seen and done!
© 2022, Tom McCarthy