Into the Woods: Morgan City, Mississippi

Right after Christmas 2015, my daughter, some friends, and I participated in the Audubon Society's annual Christmas bird count on the Sidon, Mississippi, count circle. I had never been there before and did not know the terrain. South of the nearby town of Morgan City (the town in Mississippi, not the city on the Atchafalaya River in Louisiana) are farm fields and remnant patches of bottomland hardwood forest.

We pulled off into a patch of woods to look for birds. There was a collapsed house there, in itself not too unusual. The former occupant left some vehicles behind. The first was an International Harvester truck. This was one of the Loadster series, which ended production in 1979. International Harvester is now known as Navistar International Corporation.

More interesting was a first generation Ford Bronco (1966-1977). This was Ford's small SUV, intended to compete with the Jeep CJ models and the International Harvester Scout.

This was a fairly rustic, basic utility vehicle, which is still respected by serious off-roaders. Notice this example had automatic transmission. Also look at the three knobs to the right of the steering wheel, of which the rightmost one is pulled out. I assume this was either the choke for the carburetor or to operate a vent damper door. Simple but effective, unlike the über-complex electronic nightmares you see in contemporary cars.

There was not much left to the house. This is the fate of wood structures in a humid environment.

Photographs taken with a Fujifilm X-E1 digital camera and the 18mm f/2.0 lens. RAW files processed in PhotoNinja software.