Monday, June 08, 2009

Weekend Picnic: Visit to an Automobile Junkyard

Yesterday we did something totally outrageous and sort of adventurous. We went to an automobile junkyard looking for a set of good used tires for our Toyota 4 Runner. After visiting couple of junkyards and looking at what they have to offer, we simply decided to forget all about it and buy brand new tires from Firestone or some such store.

Thousands of dead cars, awaiting a decent funeral. Being mauled and molested even after their demise...



The first place we visited was a U-pull it yard. What does that mean? Well simply put, it is a vast area.. maybe 40-50 acres of open space piled up with crashed, trashed and junked cars of all perceivable models, makes, sizes, shapes and colors. One has to pay $1 to enter inside and pull out anything from any car out there, come out pay for it and take it home. In a nutshell, I'd call this place as a big graveyard for cars and a few motorcycles. People come here and salvage the parts they need and repair their cars cheaper.

Parking lot or a stack of crashed cars?



Anyone who is proud of their car and feels like a king behind the wheel should not visit this place. The once proud boy toys lie in mangled heaps all over the place. There are ice-cream vending vehicles, automobile maintenance vehicles gone into disuse, church vans and many more.

Once Proudly owned and lovingly maintained cars.. now nothing but a stack of sheet metal..



There's beauty at the far end of the junk yard... a quaint lake with beautiful bird life. But I wonder how long the lake is going to live? As Americans use and crash more cars, many more are going to end up in places like this and when space becomes scarce, the first thing to get hit is the creek. I hope it doesn't happen.

Nature thrives, where human beings don't meddle... even in junk yards

No comments: