Stairs and Streets

Gatesville, Texas

This was an all too frequent view on the Giant Road Trip. Even though I had a planned itinerary following the most practical route from theater to theater, all mapped out on the pages of an oversize road atlas, I couldn't actually make reservations ahead of time. I tried to find snapshots of the theaters online, but even when I did I still needed to see the place in person to find out how it might fit into the project. At a pretty ordinary place I'd only want to do some general documentation pictures and move on. With a great looking structure in a terrific setting that clearly reflected its regional location, it would be a prime candidate to shoot with the 8x10 or 7x17 for the core project, but might need late day or even next morning's light to make the best picture. So then I'd need a place to stay, but find only second floor rooms available because people who actually knew what town they'd end the day had already reserved all the ground floor rooms. Even though I'd had a security/alarm system installed in the car, I couldn't leave equipment in the 100° heat, so half a dozen 35-40 pound cases had to be hauled upstairs at the end of the day and back down again in the morning.

I got to the Gatesville Best Western early enough that I expected to get a first floor room, but the manager told me there was only one room left in the whole place. I asked if there was something special going on in town, and he told me the National Guard was on manouevers at a nearby base. Then he shook his head, "don't want to complain about all the business, but what ever happened to them camping out in tents?"

Gatesville, Texas

Gatesville, Texas

Gatesville has about half again the population of Graham, and boasts a really ornate City Hall and Courthouse.  Most of the buildings are low-rise and quite small, but the streets are enormous. They're so broad it seems incongruous. Maybe it's just because there's so much room to spread out. I understand another factor is that the region is prone to flash floods and the extremely broad streets help channel the water out of town, away from the buildings.

Gatesville, Texas