Grace Notes

Tunnel Road as it moves east toward the city limits is an unlovely strip of many gas stations, car dealerships, car parts stores, insurance offices, and mini malls.  I drive this bleak strip most days, so I'm always on the lookout for some little grace notes to break up the boring drive.  There are two locations that I count on for some fun:  the used furniture store changing lawn exhibition and the motorcycle shop mannequin party.

At the top left, a featured item from today's furniture lawn show was a rocking horse with tail and mane made of what looked like mop material rocking away on the hilly shoulder of the road in the grass next to two director's chairs that seemed to be in conversation with each other.  Across the bottom is a very small part of the motorcycle shop daily mannequin party.  The mannequins wear outfits that look like they might have come from the lost and found box at the Y, sort of workout clothes tops, but alas, no bottoms.  They stand among dozens of motorcycles.  Every evening the whole collection gets pulled into the shop somehow, and every morning the party starts up again.

I had to pull into the parking lot next to the shop to do this drawing and slink down low in my car as the shop owner was sitting on a metal lawn bench near the door.  When shoppers arrived he got  up and started showing them around like guests at a party. I was trying to be unobtrusive, but so many cars were pulling in to the lot that I had to move my car to get a better look.  One drawback to my car is that it's not good at blending in to the rest of the cars in a parking lot.