I am mostly certain these are all from the month of October, 2005, near the end of a road trip from Florida to New York. After my father’s suicide in September I made a number of back-and-forth trips south to wrap up his affairs. With most stuff settled I made the nearly-final move of driving his 1997 Lincoln Town Car to its new home in Astoria.

It was an emotional trip on many levels. The cheap motels and people I encountered on that trip sometimes surface in my mind for no obvious reason. My father loved my websites, and would have appreciated knowing I made these  and numerous other payphone pitstops driving his car over 1,000 miles from Florida to NYC.

The first photo of six phone booths is from the Woodrow Wilson Service Area. The second is from the Vince Lombardi Rest Area. I did not write down where the last two photos were taken but anyone familiar with the Turnpike could certainly identify the locations. I probably could if I knew how to read a map.

Thanks solely to the Simon & Garfunkel song “America” I long maintained a romanticized notion of the New Jersey Turnpike, and the very word “turnpike” itself. Long, dark corridors of travel and imagination, falling in love with strangers, making millions off royalties from songs written about those strangers.

I no longer maintain those romantical notions.