Caption with color slide: “Negro boy near Cincinnati, Ohio.” Photograph by John Vachon, 1942 or 1943.

Library of Congress record page for this image.

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

“Cabins imitating the Indian teepee for tourists along highway south of Bardstown, Kentucky.”  Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division

Photographed by Farm Security Administration staff photographer Marion Post Wolcott in July 1940.  The photo is of Wigwam City #2, Cave City, Kentucky.

“The Wigwam Motels, also known as the “Wigwam Villages”, is a motel chain in the United States in which the rooms are built in the form of teepees, hence the name “wigwam”. It originally had seven different locations: two locations in Kentucky, a location in Alabama, another location in Florida, one in Arizona, one in Louisiana, and another one in California. They are very distinctive historic landmarks. Two of the three surviving motels are located on historic U.S. Route 66, in Holbrook, Arizona and on the city boundary between Rialto and San Bernardino, California. Wigwam Motel #2, in Cave City, Kentucky was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 16, 1988 under the official designation of Wigwam Village #2.

“Wigwam village #2 was built in 1937 a few miles south of the original wigwam village #1, but on US-31W in Cave City. It was built consisting of 15 wigwams used as guest rooms and a much bigger concrete and steel central structure that originally served as a restaurant. The 15 wigwams are arranged in a semi circle around a common area with playground and recreation area. Each wigwam has a paved pad to accommodate one car.

The diameter at the base of each teepee is 14 feet (4.3 m), they are 32 feet (9.8 m) in height. Behind the main room of each unit is a small bathroom with sink, toilet, and shower. In 2008, the rooms contain the original restored hickory furniture, cable TV and a window mounted air conditioner. There are no telephones to maintain the original atmosphere of the motel, though there is internet access. The restaurant is no longer in operation, but the motel is still open and welcoming guests.

“Wigwam village #2 is close to Mammoth Cave National Park … The motel is located on 601 North Dixie Hwy, Cave City, Kentucky. ” –   Wikipedia

All of these images of working were semi-randomly selected from the Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online Catalog using a search on the word “working.”

(Click on any of the images to view a larger version.)

After the Sipapu Natural Bridge hike, we took a drive south on Utah 261 towards Mexican Hat.  A sign not to far from our campground warned “10 % grades – switchbacks – narrow gravel road 23 miles ahead.”  I learned later that part of the route is called the Moki Dugway.

It was actually the shortest route to our next destination when we resumed our drive the next day, so, besides an afternoon excursion, we were also checking the route out to see if we should go the longer route.  The Moki Dugway  is a series of steep switchbacks down a gravel road from the top of Cedar Mesa over less than 3 miles.  It was built in the late ‘50s to for transporting uranium ore from a mine to a processing mill in Mexican Hat.

“The State of Utah recommends that only vehicles less than 28 feet in length and 10,00 pounds in weight attempt to negotiate this steep (10% grade), narrow, and winding road.”

That eliminates us, then, since towing our small car sends us way over that length.  We went the long way round the next day.

We also visited Goosenecks State Park and drove through Mexican Hat that afternoon.

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Natural Bridges National Monument, Utah

The sign at the trailhead says:

Trail to bridge: .6 mile (.97 km) – 500 foot (152 m) elevation change.

A strenuous hike rewards the adventurous with a closer view of Sipapu Bridge.  The trail leads to either a viewpoint partway down the canyon wall or to the canyon bottom where you can stand beneath one of the world’s largest natural bridges.

The trail contains two flights of stairs, three ladders, steep switchbacks, exposed bare rock, and stretches requiring the use of handrails.

Opal at Celebrate Life has given me “The Versatile Blogger” award, which I greatly appreciate.  We’ve been reading each other’s blogs since at least 2008.

Many of these blog awards have a list of requirements that go with them – which really makes them into a sort of ‘award meme’ – and this award has its own set of requirements, which I’ll be treating a tad differently.

One of the requirements is to nominate 15 bloggers that you follow regularly or have recently discovered – a little bit of linky love and sharing with others some blogs that you like.

What I started with, instead, was to trace the lineage of the Versatile Blogger award as it came to me.  I went back 97 ‘generations’ of the award before I came to a blog that had died.  Some of the blogs had been awarded multiple times, but I just followed one path back, making it all the way back to May 30, 2010. I’ve included links to all of the ‘generations’ of the award before me on the right.

The Versatile Blog award has been around a long while in internet time.  The earliest mention I could find of it was from October 2007.  There is a Versatile Blogger Award site, but  its earliest post is from only a few months ago.

Another of the requirements is to tell the person who nominated you 7 things about yourself:

1. I don’t do memes or awards.  I’m making a bit of an exception on this one, because it’s fun.  Sometime meme and award requirements are just too much of something I’m not interested.  I also don’t like to make others feel like they are obligated to do something, which is why I won’t be passing this on to anyone else.
2. Though I was born in the North, I’ve been a legal resident of the South for three quarters of my life. However, I was a legal resident of Texas for tax purposes when I was in the Navy and we lived in California, Connecticut, and Idaho.
3. I’ve spent about 15 1/2 months under water – 6 deterrent patrols on a nuclear submarine.
4. I didn’t need to wear green on St. Patrick’s Day – my eyes are green, as are my dad’s, bother brothers, and two of my sisters.  The other sister has blue eyes.
5. Even though I have a bachelors degree, I’ve never been on the campus of the college I got it from.  The same is true for our son-in-law.  We got our degrees from the same University and they weren’t mail order or online course.  We did our coursework in actual classes, but they were held on military bases.
6. I am a member of The Order of the Blue Nose (line crossing ceremony for the arctic circle).
7. I rode a bus unaccompanied to Houston from Nebraska when I was 13 to spend the summer with my mom and step-dad – I lived with my grandparents.  That summer of ‘65, we lived in a very depressed area (slum?) very close to downtown. I rode a Greyhound bus unaccompanied back to Nebraska at the end of the summer.

Sipapu Natural Bridge Trail, Natural Bridges National Monument, Utah, September 30, 2011

Natural Bridges National Monument overflow camping on nearby BLM land

Farmers’ Market, Great Falls Montana, September 1, 2007

Mt. Rushmore, South Dakota, August 22, 2007

Photograph shows store or cafe with soft drink signs: Coca-Cola, Orange-Crush, Royal Crown, Double Cola, and Dr. Pepper.

This photograph by Marion Post Wolcott, photographer for the Farm Security Administration, was shot in August 1940.

Part of Farm Security Administration – Office of War Information Photograph Collection at the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Color Photographs .

More information about this item (Library of Congress)