There is a story behind all this junk. I'm sure of it.

This is a huge junkyard, maybe 40 miles from Phoenix in a little berg outside of Strawberry, AZ. We stopped off just to look at all the accumulation...quite a sight even from the road. Piles and piles of bikes, cars, trucks, and every vehicle imaginable just piled up for a good few acres.

The guy who owns the place lives in the back of the junkyard, in a trailer covered with junk. We know, because we went back to meet him...and to purchase the bicycle part I found I needed among all the rest of the stuff. The inside of the house is just as one would imagine it would be, though parts of it were clear. The irony of this is, the man is probably at least a millionaire, if you consider the worth of some of the antiques and one-of-a-kind items--especially motorcycles and unusual old junked out vehicles. Yet he chooses to live this way.

Evidently, this junk yard is part of the local color and has been featured in several Phoenix magazines and newspapers. I'd never heard of it before, however.

This is what road trips are good for, ;).

It was an enormously hot day, but there were some really cool things to be seen, so I couldn't resist bringing out my camera. The color amid all the metal....and the metal gleaming in the sun was something to see. I also now know why Arizona was picked for that animated, funny little film, "Cars." It just kind of lends itself to stranded old vehicles on the stretches of desert highway.

Behold, the car "Mater" in the end three shots.  Some of these old trucks seem to take on personalities of their own...the two headlights standing in for eyes, the grill, a big cheesy smile.

Still, there is something nostalgic and inherently folksy-cool about old trucks--old machinery period.  To think that this was once state-of-the-art technology.