Eugene Archives (Continued)

  It's me again, and I brought some friends carts. Carts are my friends too but they're not alive so I can't be friends with them in the traditional sense of the word. However, I can call them non-alive friends. Here are some more "dead friends" from Eugene, Oregon. 

I actually think I took this in Portland. Anyway, as you can see here this cart is fascinatingly mundane. It's almost as if the store wants you to know that you're buying items to survive and that buying the items you pick up and put into this cart is in fact, mandatory. The gray and faded red really drives the point home. 

You might be getting this paper to find the latest deals on shopping, but you will leave with an article about Amy Winehouse. 

This cart appears to collect clothing from a nearby apartment complex, maybe some sort of donation system? Or maybe someone is coming back for the clothes? I would say that "only time will tell" but I don't think that applies in this scenario. Oh well, sometimes you can't always know the origin of every item you see.

Carts be with you! 🛒🛒

Launch Celebration

  Welcome to the first post of a blog I have been considering doing for years. I have been taking pictures of abandoned shopping carts since around 2011 and had always talked about putting this collection up. I thought I was the only person who had thought of this idea until I encountered a book called "The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America", which also had pictures of abandoned shopping carts and was published in 2006. I was disappointed at first until I realized that this is still a pretty niche interest and all my carts are from other areas, so I feel that there is room for both of us :). 

  This blog will also contain any urban curiosity that I've encountered as well, with either a caption or back story to shed some light on the area and any interesting information about where I've found these. Anyway, let's finally get to the point and post some carts! Let's start with what I'm calling the Valhalla of Carts in Eugene, Oregon:

This area of Eugene, Oregon is a long stretch of camp sites for drifters along the bike trail leading out of the city before you reach the coastal range. As you can see this area was loaded with a rainbow of various stores' shopping carts.

 I used to ride here on my way to work every day, and it seemed like the people staying out here would have little hangouts with beer behind the trees.

Another shot of the red cart (Bi-mart, a smaller/simpler grocery chain).

There was more graffiti here since it was on a long hidden stretch, although it wasn't very interesting.

I'm assuming someone was bored or angry and felt like crashing this cart into the small creek along the bike trail.

  So this is where the shopping carts of Oregon go to die apparently. It's like a peaceful graveyard and it tells you that a lot more goes on around this very long bike trail than what is obvious at first. Eugene is sort of known for having a large population of homeless or travelers, and one can only assume these carts were used as recyclable carriers as many homeless make some money by doing this (I used to make a decent return on my bottles there). Who knows, maybe they store them there temporarily while they rest and then pick them up again to continue their work. It's definitely 2:00 am because I'm just going on about this however maybe this blog is supposed to get your mind off of things, I have no idea. Good night! 

Carts be with you 🛒🛒