Thinking Out Loud Bout Road Trips

Here road trip, road trip, road trip! Is it road trip season yet?

Back in July of 2017 I packed up the car and headed out on what would end up being a twelve week, ten thousand mile road trip across much of the western US. Ever since I got back, I've been itching to head out again.

Made for Colorado first, explored it for while before moseying up into Wyoming and Montana. That's as far as the photos in this post gets, but the trip continued north and westward to the coast before taking a meandering route back east to Kentucky.

At the time landscape photography was what I thought I wanted to focus on. Have since come to realize that what I really wanted to focus on then was getting the fuck away from people.

Landscapes seemed the best way to make that work. Go where the people aren't, I says. Hah, that. Easier said than done.

Curiously enough, the people I met along the way were as memorable and enjoyable as the places I went. Just didn't think to take photos of them.

There was one thing though that irked me, time and again after explaining my adventure I'd be told something to the effect of 'that's a once-in-a-lifetime trip!'

The hell you say. Never could figure out what made'em think that after doing and seeing all this, I'd be content to never do anything like it again.

Must have their heads in the clouds. Still not pinned down the what, why, or how of it but there's something about wandering a long way from home that changes a person.

Don't really notice until you make it back to familiar surroundings and try to talk to the ones who've never left.

Was pondering all this recently and came to the conclusion that I'm probably overdue for another 'once-in-a-lifetime' adventure, preferably of the enjoyable variety.

Now who do I know that drives and armored truck? I wonder if 'once-in-a-lifetime' is like those '1-in-1000 year' floods that keep happening, maybe climate change can help me out here.

2020 caused me to rethink what I shoot and why, this next jaunt will likely be focused more on the social landscapes than the natural ones.

May still be able to find time to imitate Ansel Adams though.

It took just under a year to put together my 2017 trip, mostly just accumulating funds. Had to start using banks again, something I'm still salty about. Can't be wandering around the Wild West with cigarette packs stuffed with cash though.

Assuming the ICBMs don't fly between now and then, I'll be turning forty here in a couple years, which seems like a perfectly good excuse for a Mid-life Crisis Road Trip.

Now to figure out where to. What's your most epic road trip? Drop me a line, I want to hear some stories and steal some ideas.

Took well over thirty thousand photos on my grand tour of the west, which didn't seem like too much of an issue then. It's still not, but finding something new to say about it when I revisit the archives is a different story.

Had planned on this being something of a highlight reel of the road trip but then I got to editing and got carried away. Had 24 shots edited before I'd even gotten out of Yellowstone and by then I'd run out of caffeine and enthusiasm for one day. Note to self: Get expresso machine.

Which is to say there will likely be a part two to this, it covers maybe half of the trip.

Most of these shots are from Rocky Mountain, Grand Teton, and Yellowstone National Parks in Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana.

Old Faithful, never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down. Unlike the narration of this post.

This seems to be headed off a cliff, so let's end on a high note.