My eyes, more often now, have been drawn to the transient space that is the American gas station. These spots, for most, serve only a necessary function, a place where you pass through to make sure your car will get you from Point A to Point B.
In my high school days, I had more than a handful of fond memories at predominantly boring places. Walmarts and their parking lots, the drive-thru of a strip-mall Wendy’s, the sprinkler system of a Wawa gas station.
I can’t help but be reminded of what teenage rebellion felt like. It wasn’t the kind that changes the world, or wrecks one’s life and future, but the kind that was necessary for one to be sculpted and shaped into their own person. It felt like growth, not by anyone else’s metrics, but of your own.
Like a distinct scent, or taste you can recall -the feeling of those nights are felt once again when I look upon the neon accented highlights contrasted against the night-swept shadows of the transient gas station. The most mundane of spaces, once made less so, by the company at the time.
For places like airports, hubs which people are constantly passing through, the experience is still novel to me. I find it fun to see the level of intent which people walk with. One person may be crunched for time, intently following the most efficient route in an attempt to make last call for boarding. All the while, that same person may pass another with too much time to kill in their 13 hour layover.
To you, reader I hope these photos help convey a sense of wonder, for the passenger seat views of the Coloradan country side, for the nostalgic lust of days spent in the mundane transient, and for the wonders of a thousand foot view.
