Charlotte

Throughout many of the posts here Charlotte is mentioned. So perhaps Chralotte needs some explaining and positioning. Charlotte provides the ground legs of pretty much everything but international trips from here at Club 2223 and the photo wagon extraordinare. She is the second in a line and monetarily speaking hopefully the last in a line of MB wagons dating back to the fall of 1984.  Her predecessor was know simply as "The Wagon". It brought Ted home from the hospital and all five kids learned to drive in it, diesel death rattle notwithstanding. "The Wagon" suffered plenty of indignities that Charlotte will never have to endure, dents, crashes with Xandy, seven figures worth of stickers and I am sure plenty of hastily removed rowlf and other detritus that I never saw. On one ocassion gas instead of diesel. Somehow "The Wagon" endured all of that for several decades and all the way to 330,000 miles.  

So this time, no brats, no Jackie Stewart impersonators (as hillarious as that might seem) and for sure no stickers. Given my white glove treatment, I am expecting to eke at least 330k miles out of Charlotte. Ted took the shot below at Antietam over Christmas — he professes to like Charlotte and has no qualms about borrowing her on vists. Is he sending some sort of message about his real feelings?

If you are slow to respond to blog post announcements you probably need to checkout the posting right below from earlier today as well, as it was the driver for the notice.

Charlotte under Fire on Mumma Lane

Sharpsburg dependencey

This series of bracketed snaps has vexed me since I took them in August of '05.  Small shed in the back yard of a a house on the corner of West Main and North Potomac Streets, in Sharpsburg MD, near the Antietam Battlefield.  The yard was dark and the outbuilding backlit. Just reedited this, probably the best of a ton of attempts since '05 but still too crunchy.  HDR tools trying to make it look non-HDR.

Last time I drove past the building was intact but was shorn of its magnificent foliage.