Slatter’s Court was once a motor court on the old Lincoln Highway, serving travellers who passed through Davis, California and needed a place to rest their weary heads.

Along its winding lanes, a handful of well-ensconced mobile homes and trailers are nestled among tiny clapboard and stucco cottages (which range from a single room to deluxe two-bedroom suites). The relatively mild Central Valley winters make for fairly comfortable shack-living, and even in the blistering-hot summers, the air cools down nicely after dark.

The people who live in Slatter’s Court include long-time Davis residents, cash-strapped students, artists, families, and opossums. (Over the years, several of my friends have passed through there as well.) Despite the trains that frequently rumble past the back fence, it’s a quiet, sleepy little hamlet on the other side of the tracks, and probably still exists only because it was bypassed long ago by Interstate 80, Davis’s modern suburban thoroughfares, and the Information Superhighway.

(posted by Lisa Hirschfield)