Road Trip To Forgotten Spaces

I recently shared some photos from a trip to Arizona, near the southern border, and back. The journey had three primary purposes: first, to meet my sister in Phoenix and spend a weekend with our dad and stepmother; second, to take the scenic route—traveling roads less traveled and exploring along the way; and third, to collect images that reflect remnants of the past, whether through abandoned buildings, graveyards, or roadside markers.

This week, I want to share a few photos I captured of abandoned places. Unfortunately, I don’t have stories to accompany them, but I encourage you to look closely and imagine your own. Many of us are familiar with the mess that abandonment leaves behind—amplified by broken windows, missing doors, and time’s slow erosion. Once full of life and business, these places now stand in disarray. The only way forward for many is complete removal and renewal—rebuilding new stories on top of forgotten ones.

Until that happens—whether through gentrification, reinvestment, or another force—I’ll continue to explore them. There’s a kind of timeless beauty in decay, in the textures of peeling paint, rusting metal, and forgotten furniture. When these places vanish, so do their stories. And as the people who once visited them pass on, those memories risk fading forever.

Here are a few of those images. As you look through them, take a moment to remember a place that’s now gone—maybe a breakfast joint, a cozy coffee shop, or a roadside motel you stayed in once. How do you remember it?