The Chase Lounge

Ken Elder down in Carthage, NC has quite a collection of steam and gasoline engines. Here are a few pix that I shot a couple of years ago at his show. The first two are called "oil engines" since they ran on kerosene. International Harvester "Titan" Hart Parr, forerunner of Oliver Now we get to the steam engines: Avery Undermount Geiser "Peerless" Z3, the biggest engine Geiser made. And they didn't make many of them. Reeves in front, Nichols & Shepard behind 40-140 Rumley The figures are horsepower ratings. The first number is drawbar horsepower. The second is belt horsepower. And the ratings were figured differently then gasoline horsepower. J.I. Case Sawyer-Massey, a Canadian engine The Westinghouse "upright". A vertical boiler engine. And just to show that there's nothing new, here's a Lansing 4 wheel drive steam engine. And last we have an A.D. Baker engine. The Baker engine was one of the most technologically advanced steam e

It is a slow day in the East Texas town of Madisonville. It is raining, and the little town looks totally deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt and everybody lives on credit. On this particular day a rich tourist from the East is driving through town. He enters the only hotel in the sleepy town and lays a hundred dollar bill on the desk stating he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night. As soon as the man walks up the stairs, the hotel proprietor takes the hundred dollar bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher. The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to pay his debt to the pig farmer. The pig farmer then takes the $100 and heads off to pay his debt to the supplier of feed and fuel. The guy at the Farmer's Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute who has also been facing hard times and has lately had to offer her "services" on credit. The hooker runs to the hote

And it came to pass in the Age of Insanity that the people of the land called America , having lost their morals, their work initiative, and their will to defend their liberties, chose as their Supreme Leader that person known as "The One". He emerged from the vapors with a message that had no meaning; but He hypnotized the people telling them, "I am sent to save you. My lack of experience, my questionable ethics, my monstrous ego, and my association with evil doers are of no consequence. For I shall save you with Hope and Change. Go, therefore, and proclaim throughout the land that he who preceded me is evil, that he has defiled the nation, and that all he has built must be destroyed." And the people rejoiced, for even though they knew not what "The One" would do, he had promised that he would bring change, and they proclaimed "Yes We Can". And "The One" said "We live in the greatest country in the world. Help me change everything

If you can call 8400 feet of altitude "down". I guess it's all relative... Just got back to Carolina from a week in Colorado. Meant to get down to Santa Fe and meet up with Pauls, Labrat and Stingray but it didn't happen. I had a case of the "tired" the first of the week and we ended up sticking close to the ranch for the duration. Anyway, a few pix: Coming up Hard Scrabble canyon into the Valley you start to see the Sandre de Cristos in the distance. And then you drop down into the Valley: You come to Silver Cliff first and then Westcliffe. The towns run together and you really can't tell where one stops and the other starts unless you see the signs. Silver Cliff was the original mining town. Then the Denver & Rio Grande bought cheap land outside the town and established Westcliffe. Gradually all the business migrated to the rail head as the railroad had known they would. When the mines played out, Westcliffe became the dominate town and is now the