"No, it's all right, so long as I don't see it. In my mind I'm still thirty."
Weaverville, CA is a small town. A gold rush town. The kind of town that can appear and disappear without notice. Raised in hopes of fortune, felled by a volatile economy. Three short blocks of old wooden buildings akin to the era in which they were constructed encompass the town's main drag off Highway 299. To the north, national forests all the way to the Oregon boarder; to the south, sun sapped houses overlooking golden, water depleted lawns. It doesn't look like much from the outside in; but, like a timid dog in search of a friend, it might warm to you, and you to it, if you stop to take notice.
"Yes?" It's 8pm. The sun has just set. I'm standing outside the office of the Red Hill Motel, the last motel in town. Before me is a shadowed face peering out from behind a cracked door. It's a cautious face, an old face, hidden by the light behind it and the screen between us. "I was wondering if you had any openings?" A hesitant pause. The head of a small puppy pokes between the woman's legs – maybe a chihuahua. It's swaying violently as if shivering with each tiny tail wag. The woman looks at the dog. The dog looks at me and barks, then hops around the woman in an excited little dance. I squat down and speak to it. It wiggles over to sniff my hand through the screen door then dances away. "Well... we have a single open for just one night." The door opens. I walk inside.
Patty, the woman pictured above, had been living in San Francisco with her husband, who we'll call Ron, for over thirty years before stopping in Weaverville on a whim. The town was for them, as it was for me, a random encounter. A place to rest. An unexpected blip in their road trip. They stayed at Red Hill Motel, a quaint spot just off the main drag, on their way to the coast. After a few days spent discovering the town and the surrounding wilderness, they fell in love. Ron sold his plumbing business when they returned to San Francisco. A month later they became the seventh owners of the Red Hill Motel.
"He wanted to get out of the city. My requirements were that I had to have a nice kitchen and we had to be close to stores. But I'm so spoiled here now! If there's three people in line, I say 'nope' and leave."
That was twenty years ago. Ron passed away in 2002. Patty maintained the business with the help of friends. She didn't talk much about Ron, but proudly pointed out his artwork adorning the office walls, an eclectic mix of Central American artwork and paintings saved from Ron's days as an aspiring artist.
"The arts is a very difficult industry. A lot of politics. But you seem very personable and gregarious. Something tells me you'll be all right."
Patty was the first person I'd asked to photograph on my journey, the first person I'd spoken with for an extended period of time after leaving San Francisco three days prior. The previous two nights I'd spent alone in the back country of Lassen Volcanic National Park. Anxious, tired, and hungry for a friend, she'd opened her door and her life to me. It's difficult to express in words how grateful I am to her for that, and though she called herself ugly when I photographed her, to me, at that moment in time, she was the most beautiful person I could imagine.