stopping in Ludlow

Nop, not the highly charming and picturesque old Ludlow, in Shropshire, with a medieval old town and lots of half-timbered buildings; nor the historically significant mining community of Ludlow just over the border from New Mexico in Colorado, scene of the massacre of striking miners, but Ludlow CA, once a water stop on the railroad, then a more substantial stop on Route 66, and now a ghost town and a couple of gas stations.   Frankly, these should probably be turned into ghost gas stations - singularly unsavory bathrooms (at least, that's true of the one on the south side of I-40), and unsavory users.   But here's just a glimpse of our plant filled car (which went through the immingation-for-plants-and-livestock stop coming into California without a hitch, for once - as did the four cats) with a car bearing a High School Rodeo sticker next door, and the very unappetising-looking Ludlow Cafe behind (in its defence, it has a couple of good on-line reviews, which balance out the bad ones).  I'd really have loved to have taken pictures of the heavy rain and sun coming up steamily behind it just after this - but I was barrelling along at top speed behind the wheel, trying to make sure that we were safely in Los Angeles and unloaded before night fell.