Waiting for the Show by Tina M. Harris

Waiting for the Show (c) 2008 by Tina M. Harris

Shaniko is a ghost town located about 75 miles north of Redmond, Oregon where my husband and I live. I have driven to this area several times in the last couple years to take photographs and I always seem to find something new that I had overlooked on previous visits. My most recent trip to Shaniko was no different -- somehow I had never noticed the rows of empty chairs sitting on the porch of a large, abandoned barn at the end of what was once the main road through town. The chairs face a vast, empty field where nothing grows now but weeds. I couldn't help but wonder if they were left there for the once-thriving town's ghostly residents -- a place for them to sit and watch the world go by.