50 for 50: 48 - Old Timey Photo with my Parents

From the Department of Things That Should Have Been Easy...

I thought Old Timey Photos were still available at every damned amusement park.  Not so.  (Dollywood?  Yes.  Knott's Berry Farm?  Probably.)  But most parks have traded in the Old Timey Photos for Green Screen photos.  (And I went to Dollywood with Steve, who'd already done a 50 for 50 by then, and didn't want to do an Old Timey Photo anyway.)

A few months back, I was in Arizona with my folks, sister, and aunt, and we had some time to kill, so I was looking for an Old Timey Photo place, thinking I could maybe sneak that one in.  There was one just a few miles away....

It had burned down.

Honest to God, there was a fire there a couple years back, and they chose not to rebuild -- or, at least, not to rebuild the business.  The nearest Old Timey Photo place was something like 50 miles away.  Certainly nothing we could slip in before dinner.  Old Timey Photo was turning out to be a challenge.

Fast forward to me being in Arizona for my father's birthday weekend.  For his birthday, yesterday, we drove out to the Dolly Steamboat -- a paddle boat that tours around a lake up in the mountains.  (We saw big horn sheep!  And some woman wearing a tube-top bikini jump about 60 feet into the water.  (We saw her head resurface.  We're not so sure the tube top survived the impact.))  It was a nice little (air-conditioned) paddle boat tour and we enjoyed it.

It had been an hour and a half drive away.  Up the (scenic) Apache Trail.  The cell phone service is spotty up here.  You even pass an old ghost town on the way -- a gold mining town which had gone all touristy.  We'd been there years ago, and taken the mine tour, and walked past the little shops.  We were reminiscing about it on the steamboat, and my mother mentioned that we'd walked past the House of Questionable (if not actually Ill) Repute, and I thought, "Y'know, that's the sort of place that would have an Old Timey Photo establishment."

I waited until I got enough of a signal to pull the ghost town up on my cell phone, and, sure enough, of the ten whole shops at the Goldfield Ghost Town, one is an old timey photo joint. 

Now, technically (and, y'know, ACTUALLY) this was my Dad's birthday, so I half wheedled/half negotiated a stop at the ghost town on the way back the mountain.  (Said my father, with a sigh of resignation, "Can we get ice cream?"  I replied, "As a matter of fact, one of the other shops is an ice cream parlour."  A deal was made.)

For those wondering about the 50 for 50 rules at this moment, 50 for 50 things are One Per Person, and, at this point, I'd only done one with my parents, so I had a spare available.  I am therefore proud to present:  Old Timey Photo With My Folks!

That's the one I took home; my parents acquired an alternative pose:

And that's how my Dad's birthday turned out to be my 48th 50 for 50.