At least once a year I like to take a solo road trip and do a personal
photo shoot to generate new photographic material that keeps me busy creating
new artworks. For 2015, the ideas,
subject matter and route began to take shape in my mind in late February and by
March the plans were nearly fully-formed.
I was going to go back to central Oregon and photograph the things I
couldn’t because of bad weather when I was last in the area in 2013. And there were some new things I’d discovered
that I wanted to photograph which I’d been perilously close to in years past
but didn’t know about. I’ve done many,
many of these road trips/photo shoots and every time I plan one I try to do it
a little better, or at least differently.
This year I made fairly detailed plans but kept the option open to
change things on-the-fly, if necessary.
As my route took shape (I really enjoy studying maps) I did a lot of
research to find interesting things to photograph along the way. And, because of travel time and distances, I
scheduled some days that were strictly travel days, some shoot days, and some
shoot-along-the-way days. I’d always
photographed everyday but scheduling some travel-only days proved to be a smart
thing. I had a folder of maps and hard
copies of all sorts of things to look for along my route. I planned the back-end of the trip better
than in years past; I was going to fight the homing instinct and photograph
things all along the homeward route as well.
And I did something pre-trip that I’d not done before.
Between March, when I’d fully fleshed-out the route and
subject-matter, and June when I finally hit the road I visualized the whole shoot.
I visualized myself shooting this, here, and shooting that, there. I visualized great weather, pretty light and
great shot after great shot of hassle-free, successful photography. The visualization technique worked! Everything having to do with photography came
out great! Unfortunately everything
having to do with hotels and food was a bit more problematic. I had not visualized anything to do with
meals or lodging and that stuff went somewhat awry. But it didn’t matter much, this was a photo
shoot first and foremost, and everything else was secondary. More on that later.
I do some touring by motorcycle and a few of my friends asked if I
was, ‘taking the bike?’ No! A motorcycle ride is a motorcycle ride and
this was a photo shoot which meant that I’d be traveling ‘heavy.’ I had a lot
of gear. Two cases of cameras, two cases
of lenses, tripods, laptop computer and a first for me, lights which I would use
for night photography. I had all my
camping gear and the car was fully loaded with tech as well with GPS,
cellphone, Bluetooth, XM radio and all the goodies. The car was packed with everything organized
neatly (organization which lasted about two days) when I left for my first
travel-only day, destination Beatty, Nevada, about a six hour drive from home.
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| The Stagecoach Hotel & Casino, Beatty, Nevada |
I did stop and take one quick picture on the way but aside from that,
I shot nothing between my driveway and The Stagecoach Hotel in Beatty. Arriving in Beatty mid-afternoon I wondered
if I should have just driven onwards to Tonopah (where I’d stay the next night)
and shoot, but it had already been a long day.
I had a leisurely dinner, went to be early, and slept-in the next
morning. No sense in getting up early
for a drive of less than 100 miles.
The second day I’d be shooting in Goldfield, Nevada, which is between
Beatty and Tonopah, closer to Tonapah.
There are no hotels in Goldfield so I stayed in Tonopah, the nearest
non-ghost town. Since Tonopah is kind of
an iffy, redneck little place I booked myself a room in the most expensive
hotel in town (not the Clown Motel!) and felt safe and secure enough at the
Best Western.
In 2014 I’d been through Goldfield and had photographed many of the
major landmarks of the quasi-ghost town.
What I’d not known about was The
International Car Forest of The Last Church, a land-art installation of
about 40 cars, trucks and busses stuck in the desert near Goldfield as if
they’d dropped from the sky. When I’d
discovered the Car Forest I knew
immediately I wanted to photograph such a bizarre and surreal place, and I
wanted to shoot it at night. So, on the
way from Beatty to Tonopah, I stopped in Goldfield and scouted the Car Forest; yeah, this would make for
some very cool photos! I checked into
the Best Western in Tonopah, caught a nap, and prepared for an afternoon and
evening and night of photography.
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| The International Car Forest of the Last Church, Land Art Installation |
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| At the Car Forest, Goldfield, Nevada |
The plan was to shoot the Car
Forest in the late afternoon, sunset, twilight and at night; driving the 25
miles south from Tonopah, I made sure I had plenty of water for what would be a
long, 7-hour shoot. Pulling off the
highway at the ‘Dinky Diner’ sign I carefully drove the dirt road that would
take me to the Car Forest. Thinking ahead, I thought it might be
difficult navigating the unlit road on a moonless night, tired after an
extensive photo-shoot I had a (literally) bright idea --I’d leave myself a trail of ‘glowing
breadcrumbs’ and proceeded to toss about a half-dozen glowsticks out the car
window each time I topped a hill. I’d
follow the glowing path outta there later that night.
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| Some of the 40 cars at the International Car Forest of the Last Church |
Arriving at the Car Forest I
had plenty of time, but, as I always do, I shot fast and already had a lot of
photos ‘in the can’ before sundown. The Car Forest is a large area and I was
able to drive around among the upended cars and shoot easily and leisurely out
of the back of my car. As the afternoon
turned to evening I shot the sweet light of sunset and after the sun was well
below the horizon I prepared for the night photography. I’d previsualized photographing the Milky Way
rising in the night sky behind the cars, trucks and busses of the Car Forest and illuminating those
vehicles with color-gelled LED lights. I
set up my camera for the first shot, lighting a bus with a red-gelled light and
another car in the foreground with a yellow-gelled light. I shot the ‘blue hour,’ that not-quite-an-hour
between sunset and total darkness when the stars are out but the sky is still
blue from the last fading rays of daylight.
As the night progressed I moved from car to car, lighting the scenes and
making the exposures all the while dodging the bats that came out to play after
sundown. My last shot was of an upended
bus, painted by flashlight with the Milky Way high in the sky in the
background. I shot for seven hours and
was darn near exhaustion when I finally wrapped it for the evening. Now I had to drive out of there in total
darkness; there was no moonlight to guide me since I’d timed the shoot for a
New Moon. Now where are those glowsticks
I so carefully tossed out of the car window?
Ah, there’s one, so I drove to it.
Then I saw another, then another and I followed my glowing path right
back to the highway and pointed the car northward to Tonopah and a good night’s
sleep.
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| Bus & Milky Way, midnight at the Car Forest |
Arriving back at my hotel room after midnight, I plugged-in all the
camera battery chargers and went to sleep to recharge my own personal
batteries.
I awoke fairly early after my long night at the Car Forest, grabbed some of the free breakfast provided and hit the
road. Day Three would take me to
California, via highways 95, 50, 80 and 395; I’ve done this drive before. There was not much traffic on the state
highways of Nevada. Passing through the
creepy military town of Hawthorne I wondered if all the ammunition stored in
all those bunkers outside of town was still any good. I saw the cop on the other side of the sign
that lowers the speed limit from 55mph to 45 and braked hard so I’d be going
45mph when I crossed that imaginary line ---I don’t need a ticket or to be shot
by a cop. He gave me an annoyed look but
he couldn’t stop me for speeding; I know their games, he’ll have to hassle the
next driver! I wouldn’t be stopping to photograph
the old Shoe Tree on the north end of Walker Lake because it was long-gone,
taken down by some Nevada DOT road crew in the name of ‘safety.’ I noticed the small towns on the way to
Fallon must base their entire economies on the sale of fireworks; I’d never
seen so many fireworks stands outside of an Indian Reservation! Catching Interstate 80 east of Sparks, I
cruised through Reno, got onto highway 395 and crossed into California. I answered ‘no’ to the California Inspection
question of ‘do you have any fruits or vegetables?’ Just past the agricultural inspection I
stopped and photographed the Shoe Tree on the side of highway 395. I’ve photographed that tree before and it
always makes for a nice infrared photo.
I continued on to Susanville where I stopped for the night and got a
room at the Econo Lodge. ‘No,’ was the
answer to my, ‘may I have a first floor room, please,’ question so I schlepped
my clothes and cameras up to (one of many, as it would turn out) my second
floor room.
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| Highway 395 Shoe Tree, Photographed in Infrared |
Once in my room I cleaned up, relaxed a bit, and checked my folder to
see if I’d found any obscure things to photograph in Susanville. I had one thing on my list of ‘Susanville
photo-ops,’ and it was the Giant Lumberjack in front of The Lumberjack Restaurant. Looking out my hotel room window I wondered
where The Lumberjack Restaurant was until I noticed it was right next door to
the hotel. Cool! I’ll grab my camera, walk over there, take
the photo, and have some dinner.
The ‘Giant’ Lumberjack wasn’t all that giant and wasn’t even
impressive enough to merit a photograph so I got a table and ordered
dinner. I ordered the ‘specialty’ which
was a turkey dinner with stuffing and gravy.
After a mediocre meal at the Beatty Denny’s, a Burger King lunch in Tonopah
and nothing else but granola and snacks, a nice, sit-down, family-style meal
would be nice. Well, in theory, but not
in practice. When they serve you a
complete turkey dinner less than two minutes after you order it, that’s not a
good sign. And indeed, it was a Bad Omen
as it was the first of many shitty meals I’d eat on this trip. Although I’d visualized the photographic part
of the road-trip, I’d done no such thing for the food and lodging aspect and
here I was, in an overpriced ‘cheap’ hotel and eating a really bad dinner. Oh well, at least it didn’t make me sick. Could be worse, no attack of the post-dinner
shit-n-pukes!
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| At Lassen Volcanic Park, California |
The next days’ drive from Susanville to the Lassen Volcanic Park in
California was beautiful with cool, tree-lined forest roads and light
traffic. I paid my fee at the Visitors
Center and (surprisingly) there was cellphone service so I was able to call
Bernadette. All was well at home. I slowly drove through the park and made
notes of which mountain was where so I could choose an interesting backdrop for
the night photography I’d be doing in another ten hours. I chose a convenient campsite at Manzanita
Lake, had some lunch, and relaxed for the afternoon. During the day I scouted two locations,
neither far from the campground, where I’d shoot some night photos. One location allowed me to get the reflection
of the night stars in the water, the other would put Mount Lassen directly
below the Milky Way. At about 10:30 pm I
drove to the Mount Lassen location. It
was a very convenient spot with a pullout on the road. I drove into the pullout and drove as far
forward as I could, so no car could park in front of me (one must take certain
precautions, usually unnecessary, when photographing at night) as I didn’t want
to get boxed-in. As soon as I began
gathering my equipment from the back of my car, another car drove up, stopped,
did a U-turn, drove into the pullout and parked directly in front of me! I’d
left no space, but now there was a suspicious car in front of mine. I could see the glow of a cellphone, but the
driver didn’t exit the vehicle. With
‘it’s dark and I’ve got fifty grand worth of cameras’ paranoia setting in I
wondered what that person was up to.
Dumbass humans with their freaking herding instinct! Well, that person doesn’t seem threatening, but I don’t know what
they’re up to so……….. I put a fisheye
lens in one pocket and my 380 semi-auto handgun in my other pocket and got to
work. Fortunately the person never got
out of their car, never bothered me, and when I wrapped the photography the gun
went back into its hiding place.
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| Milky Way over Manzanita Lake |
Aside from the paranoia-causing car that just had to park in front of me the only other weirdness that evening
came in the form of two UFO sightings.
Before I’d even set up a camera I saw a strange light in the sky. It would hover, then move, then change
directions in a ninety-degree angle, hover again, and then move. It was just a light in the sky but it moved
and then stopped in mid-air, then it would make a ninety-degree maneuver and
stop again. Weird flight characteristics
and too high in the sky to be a helicopter.
Later, while I was shooting, another strange aircraft appeared
overhead. It was traveling in a straight
line, like an airplane, but it didn’t have flashing FAA wing lights. It did have one centrally located flashing
light that was surrounded by white lights that looked as if they rotated around
the central light. It looked disk shaped
with the rotating lights. I photographed
its straight flight-path but once out of sight I never saw it again. I wonder what it was?
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| Is this a UFO? Normally planes' wing-lights leave dots in the exposure, there are none in this picture |
I was good-to-go if the aliens wanted to abduct me, but they didn’t,
and I wrapped the shoot a little after midnight.
Frequently when shooting night photos I camp to be near the location
where I’ll be photographing. When I’m
shooting at night and camping, I always choose a campsite that’s near the
entrance/exit so I don’t disturb anyone when I return from the night
shoot. In every campground there’s
always one asshole who sets off his car-alarm at midnight and disturbs everyone
--- and I don’t want to be the noisy one.
I quietly drove back to my campsite, stowed my gear, and got ready to
sleep in the back of my car. Just as I
had everything set and was about to turn in I accidently set of my car alarm
which made me the very noisy asshole
I was trying so hard not to be! I’m sure everyone
saw my lights flashing, heard my horn honking and me, inside the car, cursing, sonofabitch! How embarrassing….
I was outta there before first light the next morning! Car alarm?
I didn’t hear no car alarm! It
wasn’t me.
I began my fifth day driving through the Lassen forest on my way to
the Lava Beds National Monument. I saw
many areas devastated by forest fires and ultimately ended up on a rough,
barely paved road taking me to the Lava Beds.
My intent was to photograph some caves, and one very pretty one in
particular, to use as components in future digital composites. I stopped at the Visitors Center, paid the
entrance fee and got quizzed about ‘white nose disease.’ No, I hadn’t been in any other caves recently
and I wasn’t carrying the fungus that caused ‘white nose disease’ in bats. I asked the ranger-chick about the specific
cave that I wanted to photograph but was told the local Indian tribe had taken
it back as a ‘sacred site’ and I couldn’t go there. She directed me to another cave that ‘looks
similar.’ So I visited some caves, got a
nice photo of the ‘similar’ cave and… decided I really don’t like caves. I also decided I did not need to camp at the
Lava Beds National Monument so I pointed the car towards Oregon and headed
north.
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| One of the caves at Lava Beds National Monument in northern California. |
Just south of Klamath Falls I hung a left on State Route 66 and drove
fifty miles of twisty, curvy, technical roads (perfect for motorcyclists) into
Ashland. On my list of ‘interesting
things to photograph along the way’ was a local park in Ashland that I thought
would make an interesting subject for Infrared photography. But despite my MapQuest printed map, the
Triple-A map, an Oregon atlas and a GPS, I could not find the damn place. After wasting too much time I simply gave
up. It’s only a park and The Universe
does not want me to find it, so fuck that!
In my low-blood sugar state I found a Wendy’s instead and got a quick
body-refueling, immediately felt better and decided I’d get back on I-5 and
head to Medford.
Rolling into Medford a few miles later I checked into another upstairs
room at the Motel 6. Noticing the Dairy
Queen across the parking lot, I knew then what I’d be having for dinner. Urgh, more fast food. But hey, it’s cheap and convenient and better
than that hideous turkey dinner I’d had at The Lumberjack restaurant back in
Susanville. After a brief respite I
drove the twenty miles to Jacksonville where I would photograph the old and
supposedly haunted Jacksonville Cemetery.
The late afternoon light illuminated the 1800s cemetery
beautifully. Although I didn’t get any
creepy feelings, that cemetery is definitely old enough to be haunted ---I’ll
have to check my photos closely for orbs.
I shot the cemetery in infrared, which seemed appropriate for the
‘dreamy’ quality of the place. I lost
the light as I filled the camera’s memory card and headed back to my room in
Medford as the sun dropped below the horizon.
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| Jacksonville Cemetery, Jacksonville, Oregon, Photographed in false-color Infrared |
Unsuccessful again in obtaining a convenient, first floor room I began
the three-trip schlep with my equipment from the car up to my room. Halfway up the stairs on the last trip my
cel-phone rang. ‘Oregon’ the caller ID
said. I know maybe two people in Oregon,
who the heck could be calling me?
It was my old friend Doug! Doug
and his wife Lori own a restaurant, The Sawtooth Roadhouse, in Odell (yes,
that’s the name) Oregon which is about 20 miles south of Hood River. He tells me they need new photos for menus,
website and the rack-cards that advertise the restaurant. He’s talked to a number of local
photographers but their rates are so high he’s thinking of just buying a new
camera and shooting the pictures himself and wants to know what I think of
certain camera models. So I share all
the information I have and ask him about how much he wants to spend. He gives me a number and I think for a moment
and say: “I would shoot that for you for half that amount.”
“Well that would be cool, but….” Doug replied.
“…But I’m in Medford right now.”
“You’re in the southern part of Oregon, right now?!”
“Yeah, and I even have lights with me.
I could shoot the job for you if you can wait a couple of days for me to
get there.”
“Hell yeah!” Doug answered, and
added, “I’ll get the spare room ready for you, you’ve gotta spend a couple of
days with us!”
And with that it was set. I’d
be up near Hood River in three days. I’d
just booked a little job, would see my old friends, would have a nice place to
sleep and I already knew the food would be great. How cool is that?!
Bernadette was astonished when I called and told her the news. “You never make money on these trips.”
I left the Medford Motel 6 before dawn the next morning. It was cool, cloudy and rain was threatening
as I drove up I-5 to Roseburg. Exiting
the interstate in Roseburg, I gassed up the car again, grabbed another cup of
coffee and wondered if my good weather luck had run out and I was now getting
into ‘typical’ gloomy and rainy Oregon weather.
But no, it did not rain and the weather improved as I traveled eastward
on highway 138. I spent the better part
of the day taking short hikes and photographing many of the waterfalls along
the one-hundred mile route.
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| Small waterfall on highway 138 east of Roseburg, Oregon |
Connecting with highway 97 at Diamond Lake I turned northbound towards
Bend and started looking for someplace to eat a late lunch. Finally stopping at a McDonalds in Gilchrist
I had lunch with a collection of mutants, one of whom was actually stumped by
the question, “Do you want fries with that?”
You see all kinds of weirdness on a multi-week road trip, especially
in restaurants and bars!
The photography was pretty much done for the moment so I called
Bernadette from the car. “Where are you
spending the night?” she asked.
“Prineville.”
“Where the hell is that?”
“North of Bend, east of Redmond.”
“Never heard of the place, and why did you pick Prineville?”
“Because I want to shoot the Painted Hills and Prineville is the
nearest town, about fifty miles away.”
“I’ll get online and see what’s available for the night and call you
back.”
This would be the routine for the rest of the trip; I’d call
Bernadette with my location and she’d go online or call ahead and book me a
hotel room. Except when she’d call back,
it usually went like this:
“You’re fucked.” She’d
say. “All the hotels are booked.”
And that’s how the get-me-a-room-in-Prineville conversation began.
So I just rolled into Prineville determined to wing it. After two laps of
the main drag through town I stopped in the Econo Lodge, had a pleasant
conversation with the Indian (not Native American) woman at the desk, and got
the last available room at an over-my-budget-but-better-than-sleeping-in-the-car
rate. Of course it was an upstairs room.
Cooling off and resting in my Econo Lodge room I called Bernadette and
told her I’d be sleeping indoors after all.
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| The John Day Painted Hills |
That evening I made the one-hundred mile round trip to the Painted
Hills and shot some nice photos. The
next morning I did some photography in town and treated myself to a leisurely
sit-down breakfast which was actually good.
My next stop would be in the little town of John Day. Bernadette was checking on lodgings in John
Day when I called her in-route.
“You’re fucked.” She answered when
I asked about a room in John Day.
“What the hell? John Day is a
little pissant, one stoplight town.” I
was getting frustrated.
“Well, why was Prineville mostly booked up?” She asked.
“County fair and a Pow Wow.” I answered.
“I don’t think there’s a Pow Wow in John Day. I don’t know what the deal is but there is
one room at The Dreamer’s Lodge in John Day for ninety bucks. If you want it I’d better call that Indian
(not Native American) dude back soon.”
“Get me the room!”
It wasn’t too far a drive from Prineville to John Day and I took many
side roads and shot landscapes and other unexpected photos along the way. I drove many roads where I wished I was on my
motorcycle and saw many, many motorcyclists with shit-eating grins riding the
Oregon backcountry. I photographed the
John Day Fossil Beds and the famous Mitchell Shoe Tree. Driving through the outskirts of John Day I
saw a big, handmade ‘Impeach Obama’ sign on the side of the road. Mental note: don’t talk politics with dumbass
conservatives who hate the Black President.
Ya know, big anti-government signs greeting travelers aren’t really the
best way to welcome someone to your town.
When I got to the towns’ single stoplight I saw the Dreamers Lodge,
checked-in and learned why every motel room in the whole darn town was booked.
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| Lovely way to welcome travelers to your town! So, you're Obama-hating rednecks who watch Fox news, eh? |
A motorcycle rally. A very big
motorcycle rally. Maybe 1500 bikes!
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| Some of the motorcycles parked at the John Day fairgrounds |
Hauling my stuff up to another second floor room I opened the door and
found…. A three bedroom apartment! And
no, it wasn’t nice – or clean. It was
one of the weirdest rooms I’ve ever seen.
A ‘living room’ with couch, vinyl flooring and a wall-sized mirror; a
full kitchen furnished circa 1970, a ‘master bedroom,’ two more, smaller,
bedrooms and a skinny, hallway sized bathroom.
Weird, and kind of creepy. This
was not a place where I wanted to hang out.
No, for my time spent in this really weird room I would be unconscious,
sleeping. In the meantime I needed food
and I figured I could do some local photography to finish the day.
The large, surly chick at the McDonalds grudgingly gave me one catsup
pack and I felt lucky to get some ‘lubricants’ for my dried-up French
fries! I did some more photography to
avoid going back to that weird room.
I was back at the hotel at sunset as the parking lot was filling up
with motorcycles.
There are two subjects you can talk about with just about anyone,
anywhere, and they are dogs and motorcycles.
I ended up chatting with a group of bikers (and these are retirement-age
guys on big adventure-touring bikes and definitely NOT the Hell’s Angels) until
after dark. Thanks to their cheery
conversation I didn’t have to spend much time awake in that very odd room. I slept well and was gone by dawn the next
morning.
The next day I was heading into familiar territory. I’d been in this area before but there was
something different this time. No
Rain! Driving through north-central
Oregon I was excited to get to the Windfarms near Wasco and Biggs and, finally,
get some nice-weather photos of those electricity-generating windmills. In years past I’ve photographed the windfarms
but I always had to contend with dark skies, gloomy weather and rain, but not
this time. No, the third time really was
a charm. White columned, three rotor
wind turbines penetrated the blue skies, growing up in straight rows from the
green and yellow crops. It was simply
beautiful! I took my time, made lots of
stops and explored many side-roads and really ‘worked’ the windfarm
photography. And, for the first time
ever, I could see Mount St. Helens in the distance, something I never knew
about when shooting in the rain previously.
When I got to the Columbia River Gorge I crossed the river into
Washington and shot the windmills on the north side of the river. Doubling back I re-crossed the river and got
onto interstate 84 westbound to Hood River.
But I didn’t get far. It had been
an early morning, with almost no breakfast, and I’d had about a half-dozen suicidal
deer encounters (evasive driving but no deer-impacts). I was so tired I had to pull off the road and
grab a quick parking lot nap just west of The Dalles.
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| Electricity-generating wind turbines near Wasco, Oregon |
I gassed up the car at the always-busy Shell station in Hood River and
headed south to Odell, the Sawtooth Roadhouse, and Doug and Lori’s place.
Twenty miles later I was parking at the restaurant which is directly
across the road from the Lumber Mill (hence the ‘Sawtooth’ Roadhouse
name). Neither Doug nor Lori were in the
restaurant so I had lunch at the counter and then drove the quarter mile down
the road to their house.
I’d met Doug way back in the early 1990s when he was a student in one
of my photography classes in Houston, Texas.
He was one of the smart ones and we’d become friends. Each of us had escaped the climatological
horrors of Texas during the mid-1990s, he moved to Alaska and I’d gone to Arizona. During the interceding years we’d stayed in
touch and gotten together a few times when wildlife photography had taken me to
Alaska. Eventually Doug met Lori and
they got married. About seven years ago
they bought the Sawtooth Roadhouse restaurant and moved near Hood River. They also adopted a baby girl from China,
Mei-Li. They’re good parents and are the
very kind of people who should have
kids.
I’m envious of their lifestyle.
They own a restaurant and live a quarter mile away, so they don’t even
have to drive a car to work. Their home
sits on a couple of acres of land, which is green and lush and quite unlike my
local backdrop. Sitting the backyard
smoking cigars one evening Doug mentioned that he was envious of my lifestyle! We always want what the other guy has, don’t
we? Actually both Doug and I know
exactly how lucky we are.
And I’m lucky Doug owns a restaurant with a bar in it! When I travel I always carry a flask of rum
but I’d emptied it during my previous night in John Day. Fortunately Doug refilled my flask with some
tasty spiced rum. Yay! Doug’s rum lasted until I arrived safely at a
bar in Las Vegas. Note to self: next
road-trip, bring two flasks!
Since I’d arrived on Father’s Day Sunday I’d be partaking in the
Father’s Day barbeque and had a wonderful evening with Doug and Lori and their
parents. Doug’s folks drove in from
Portland, about an hour and a half away, and Lori’s parents live in Hood River. It was a great evening, full of intelligent
conversation and great food. The
restaurant photography could wait until Monday.
We got started on the photography after a late breakfast the next day. I cleared a table on the ‘family’ side of the
restaurant (separate from the bar side) and set up lights to compliment the
window light which I would use as the Main Light for the food photography. Doug brought out the wine and beer to be
photographed and Lori prepared the salads, nachos, sandwiches, desserts and other
things I’d be photographing. And then
the restaurant got busy. In between
preparing perfect (no food stylist) meals for me to photograph Lori was also
prepping food for customers. And Doug
was working part-time as my assistant and waiter. I was really impressed when I watched him
take an order from a table of six, not writing anything down, and deliver their
lunches perfectly accurate! I’d of
screwed up their beverage order ---and spilled it! By late afternoon we wrapped up the shoot.
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| Some of Wine offerings at The Sawtooth Roadhouse, Odell, Oregon |
We went back to the house and since the light was just getting nicer
and nicer in the late afternoon hours I figured it was time for some portraits
of Mei-Li. She was a willing model and I
shot a number of poses and some extra photos of her with her new puppy. Doug and Lori work hard and photographing the
kid isn’t a priority, so I made sure they’d have some nice pictures.
I’ve met Mei-Li now three times and have watched her grow from an
infant to a first-grader. I know her
(sad) pre-adoption backstory. Although I
don’t have kids, and wouldn’t want to raise one in today’s world, I know Mei-Li
will be just fine. She’s pretty, intelligent and will be raised
right. I love the little girl and since
I don’t have children of my own, I’ve put her in my will. I just hope I can do her right by leaving her
something to inherit aside from cleaning up my lifetime’s mess. Before she went to bed Monday night she told
me I had to come back, and when I did, I had to stay three nights. I told her I
would.
 |
| Doug, me & Lori |
It was really great seeing my old friends, doing a food-shoot and some
kid-portraits. I really needed a respite
at the halfway point of my Grand Adventure.
Doug saw me off the next morning, pre-dawn when I hit the road again.
Doubling back through Hood River and Biggs I photographed more
windmills and was grateful for the sun and clear skies. Every other time I’d photographed the area I
had to contend with the typically gloomy Oregon rain, but this time was
gloriously sunny and I shot a lot of photos that would be very different from
the earlier photos. Heading further
eastward along the Columbia River Gorge I made a stop in Boardman to photograph
a Tree Farm. I’d photographed the Tree
Farm in 2013 in the rain and gloom and gotten some great photos, but this time
it was sunny with clear skies. The
‘good’ lighting conditions were actually not as useful as the overcast skies
had been two years previously. The
‘good’ light this time was contrasty with dark shadows and bright highlights
but I ‘worked the light’ and came away with another series of arrow-straight
rows of trees showing the camera multiple vanishing points. I’ll figure out what to do with the new Tree
Farm photos sometime in the future.
 |
| At the Boardman Tree-Farm |
My next planned stop would be Palouse Falls State Park where I planned
on camping one night and photographing the Palouse waterfalls both during the
day and at night with the stars out.
While still within sight of ‘civilization’ near Walla Walla I called
Bernadette.
“Where will you be tonight?” she asked.
“Camping at Palouse Falls State Park in Washington.”
“OK, where tomorrow? Do you
need a hotel?”
“Tomorrow I’ll be heading into the Palouse region of eastern
Washington.” I answered.
“Where will you stay?”
“I’m thinking about driving to Pullman, Washington, and finding a
hotel there.”
“Let me call ahead and see what’s available, you haven’t been having
much luck with motels.”
“OK,” I replied to the hands-free Bluetooth phone, “you’ve got about
another hour and after that I’m not so sure about cel-phone service.”
About twenty minutes later she called back and again said: “You’re
fucked.”
“Oh man, not again!” Was all I
could muster, this string of no-vacancy hotels was getting frustrating. “OK, check availability of rooms in the
nearby towns of Palouse, Colfax, and Moscow, Idaho. Worst case check on the Super 8 motel where I
stayed two years ago in Lewiston, Idaho.
It’s a little out of my way but it’s right on highway 12.”
Bernadette went to her computer to check for hotels, I went to Burger
King for my only hot meal of the day.
My phone rang and I answered, “How fucked am I?”
“You’ll be staying at the Super 8 in Lewiston,” was Bernadette’s
answer.
“No shit? Is that the closest
you can get me?”
“Yup, Pullman, Palouse, Colfax, Moscow, all booked, no vacancies. There’s plenty available in Spokane but
Lewiston is closer so I got you a room at that Super 8.”
“Well that’s frickin’ inconvenient, but it’ll have to do.”
She texted me the confirmation number and I continued onward to
Palouse Falls State Park and out of cel-service range.
A few hours later, after traveling the interstate to a state road, the
state road to a 2-lane county road, to a dirt road, I arrived at Palouse Falls
State Park. The place was smaller than
expected with only about a dozen campsites.
The waterfall was smaller than expected too. I shot some mid-day photos of the waterfall,
mid-day being the best light as the falls are, essentially, down in a
hole.
Actually, the falls and the park weren’t all that impressive, and I
thought about just moving on but didn’t really have anywhere to go. I was only a couple of hours from Lewiston,
where I had a reservation for the next two days, but not to-day. I decided to stick
with the plan and camp. I took one of
only twelve campsites and set up my tent.
I don’t sleep in tents anymore because I prefer to have sheet metal
between me and the bears instead of the false security of a sixteenth inch of
fabric. I sleep in the car, but I have
to put up a small tent to retain the campsite ---I’ve left ‘occupied’ looking
items like coolers and camp chairs but they only get stolen. After setting up my tent, I took a nap.
 |
| Waking up at Palouse Falls State Park, Washington |
Later in the afternoon all the ‘day users’ had left leaving only the
overnight campers in the park. Everyone
was very friendly. I met Martin, a
Canadian who was vacationing alone. He
was playing guitar at his campsite and looking for someone to jam with, and after
a while another camper/guitarist joined him.
I talked to another Indian (not Native-American) who was ‘taking the
kids camping while he had custody over the summer.’ There were a number of photographers there
too and I ended up chatting with them all.
When I mentioned I planned on doing some night photography of the falls
around 11PM everybody was
interested. The other photographers were
planning on the same, they’d all seen the same photo online I had of the Milky
Way rising over the falls and wanted to try to ‘get that shot.’ Martin and the Indian guy wanted to watch and
learn how so…
At about 11PM I led an impromptu night photography seminar and showed
all those guys how it is done. We
painted the falls with light from our flashlights and played with some of my
Chinese lasers. Everybody had fun and
thanked me for showing them how to photograph stars at night. I know Martin got some nice shots because I
saw them on the back of his camera. As
for getting that ‘falls and Milky Way’ shot, I didn’t get it and I don’t think
anyone else did either. I think that
photo online was a composite. Oh
well. It was a fun evening with friendly
folk.
With only a short drive to
Lewiston ahead of me I slept in as long as I could, had a granola bar and Red
Bull for breakfast, packed up and headed out.
The drive from Palouse Falls State Park to Lewiston, Idaho was short
and scenic and I stopped a number of times to shoot photos.
Driving into Lewiston from the west I recognized some familiar
landmarks from my last visit in 2013.
Had I’d known in 2013 that the incredibly beautiful Palouse farm region
was little more than ten miles to the north I’d of photographed it then, but
I’d been completely unaware. I’d also
been rather single-minded on that trip so I missed it and I had some of the
shittiest weather I’d ever had to contend with.
Now, the weather was perfect, sunny, clear and warm with no rain in the
forecast at all. Since it was still too
early to check-in the motel I found a restaurant and had a nice, hot and
leisurely-late breakfast. Better than
granola and Red Bull for sure! After
breakfast I checked my watch and, calculating one hour later for Mountain Time,
paid the bill and drove to the Super 8 motel on highway 12. But I was still too early to check-in. Apparently, just over the eastern state line
of Washington, Lewiston is still in the Pacific Time zone, so I had to wait an
hour. That hour stretched into two hours
(why, I don’t know, except that’s the only power motel people have over
clients). At 2PM local time I finally
got a room. They couldn’t refuse me a
first floor room because the motel only had one floor!
Two years prior, when I’d arrived in Lewiston, I did laundry and
backed up camera files. This time I
again did a load of laundry but I didn’t have to back up any camera memory
cards. I had so many large capacity memory
cards this time that I never did have
to back anything up. I never had to haul
the laptop computer into a motel room. I
sorted my laundry, cleaned cameras and lenses, took a shower and then had an
afternoon nap. Nice!
I awoke a little after 5PM. I’d
thought I’d try for three shoots in the Palouse area, tonight I’d not shoot but
turn in early. I’d shoot the next days’
sunrise and sunset and the following sunrise, except after my nap I was feeling
refreshed and figured I’d go for it, so I loaded my equipment into the car and
headed north.
It literally was only ten miles northbound when I got into the rolling
farmland of The Palouse; not as far a drive as I’d anticipated. My cel-phone rang, it was Bernadette.
“Where are you?”
“Northbound, heading towards Pullman.”
“Are you shooting?”
“No, not yet anyway.” I
continued. “It’s cloudy and dark, looks
like it might rain.”
“Oh no, has your good weather luck run out?”
“It may have, but I hope not.
The clouds don’t look all that thick, and there’s a break in the clouds
near the western horizon. You know how
that goes; the weather looks shitty then the sun pops out for a few minutes of
incredible light. You don’t know if you
don’t go, so I’m here. If I get skunked
with weather at least I’ve scouted the location.”
“Well I’ll let you go shoot, good luck with light.”
 |
| The Palouse |
I drove on to Pullman and then turned westward, driving slow and
making mental notes along the way. When
I’d researched the Palouse area I discovered that it is a photographer’s Mecca
with all kinds of photo-workshops and even online maps pointing out ‘lone
trees’ and ‘red barns.’ Oh, the fucking
Red Barn cliché! And I did see lots and
lots of cliché red barns ---which I resisted shooting until I saw one that was
just too perfect of a pretty picture cliché not
to shoot (I don’t have to show it to anyone).
As the miles wore on the sun began peeking from the clouds illuminating
the landscape magnificently. I started
shooting under overcast skies but soon the sun broke through for the remaining
hour of daylight. I drove fast and shot
fast and got a lot of good photographs.
Bernadette called again.
“How’s it going?”
“Great! Sun’s out and it’s
freakin’ awesome! Fucking-A, this is
incredible, it’s amazing, beautiful and…. I’ve got to go! Not much light left,
I’ll call you back after sundown.”
And I shot like crazy until it was dark. And darkness didn’t come until after
9PM. I live in Arizona, the Southwest,
and I’d forgotten that the further north you go in the summertime, the longer
the days are. Sunrise comes before 5AM
and sunset isn’t until after 9PM. Long
days. It was after 10PM when I got back
to my motel room with a bag of McFood.
After scarfing down another fast food meal I called Bernadette with the
good news.
“Wow! You’re having good
weather luck at the same intensity as the bad weather last time.”
“It’s been amazing! Good light,
beautiful locations, not too hot or too cold.
Good thing I went for it tonight.”
I’ve been doing this photography thing long enough to know a few
things about luck:
Luck is not
dependable.
Luck favors the
prepared.
Often ‘bad luck’
is just good luck you’re not ready for.
Still, I’d rather be lucky than good.
Actually, I’d rather be lucky and good.
It wasn’t a long nights’ sleep.
I was up and out of the hotel shortly after 4AM the next day for the
sunrise shoot.
Driving northbound towards Colfax, Washington, with my cup of motel
coffee, I tried to remember a conversation I’d had back at Palouse Falls with
one of the guy’s I’d met. He’d been in
the Palouse area a few days prior and had said I just had to go up on some butte for the view… what was the name of that
butte?
I drove and stopped and photographed and drove some more and
photographed more and… saw a sign for Steptoe Butte State Park. Ah ha!
That’s the butte the guy was talking about! And so I drove straight up that
mountain. Well, it wasn’t straight at
all; the road went around and around that mountain all the way to the top. After what seemed like a whole lot of
dizzying miles I arrived at the top of the butte and was rewarded with a
spectacular view. Yup, this is where so
many of those photos I’d seen online of The Palouse were shot. And this was one of those unique landscape
viewpoints that begs for a long telephoto lens instead of a wide-angle. I attached my 100-400mm zoom to my camera,
racked it out to 400mm and shot like crazy.
Then I put a long lens on my infrared camera and shot it all again. I had the area completely covered by the time
the sun rose so high my morning’s shoot was over.
Wow! What an incredible
morning. Turning
three-hundred-and-sixty-degrees revealed beautiful subjects in every
direction. You’d have to be a horrible
photographer not to take a great
photo here. Yes, many of the photos I
shot were blatant clichés, but what the heck, cliché’s are pre-approved, so I
shot ‘em.
Cruising back to Pullman I stopped for McBreakfast and more coffee and
decided, instead of driving back to Lewiston via the same route, I’d return via
Moscow, Idaho, and see what there was to see.
It was a short drive from Pullman, Washington to Moscow, Idaho. Both are college towns. I only had to drive a few blocks through
Moscow to find highway 95 which would take me back to Lewiston. Turning right, southbound, on the road that
would become highway 95, I saw a sight I had
to photograph.
Some photographs are difficult to make but the image I saw when I made
that right turn was a ‘gift,’ a beautiful photograph, fully formed and ready to
shoot without any alteration. Luckily
there was an empty parking lot in just the right place, I pulled in. Working quickly I grabbed my Lumix Micro Four
Thirds camera, which was on the front seat at the ready. I made a quick lens change, zoomed it to 45mm
(90mm equivalent), pointed the camera out the car window and fired three
brackets of three exposures each. Nine
frames total and I was done. The picture
was of five people painting the side of a building, all wearing red shirts with
three of them on top of ladders. It was
the kind of shot I would have set up if it were a job, but this was a gift,
already there, and all I had to do was take the shot. So I got nine shots before someone started
walking away. No one saw me. For just an instant I was Henri
Cartier-Bresson! It was one of the
easiest photos I shot on the whole shoot and it was the only people-picture I made (excepting the Mei-Li portraits). Of all the beautiful landscape photos I shot
that morning, the ‘people on ladders’ picture was the one that stuck in my
mind.
 |
| The "gift" photo in Moscow, Idaho |
I was one happy photographer when I got back to Lewiston. My room had been cleaned while I was out so I
got out all the battery chargers and charged up all the camera and device
batteries. Then it was time for a
nap. With long days and short nights I
had to sleep at odd hours. I slept for a
good portion of the day, awoke, went out for some fast food dinner, showered,
and got ready for one more sunset shoot of The Palouse. And it was another spectacular sunset shoot
as well. By the time it was dark and I’d
wrapped the shoot I figured I didn’t really need to shoot another sunrise and
would bug out early the next morning for Montana.
The homing instinct really kicked in after The Palouse shoot. I’d gotten every photograph I’d hoped for,
and I was kinda ready to get home and relax, but at my current location I was
as far from home as I’d be on the whole trip; I was days from home.
I checked the map but there was no more expeditious route than the one
I’d planned. I had no choice but to
stick with my pre-planned route and drive across the Idaho panhandle one more
time (I’d done this exact drive two years previously) to Missoula, Montana.
Leaving at first light the next morning I was determined to get to
Missoula as quickly as possible and drove the two-hundred or so miles as fast
as I could ---which wasn’t that
fast. The highway follows a river for
about one-hundred miles so it’s a twisty, technical road that would be fun on a
sportbike. Fortunately there wasn’t much
traffic to slow me down. I’d driven this
same route in 2013 so I’d already taken all the ‘easy’ pictures in-route so I
didn’t stop until I reached the traffic-clogged clusterfuck known as Missoula,
Montana.
Urgh! I arrived in Missoula
tired and hungry, cranky with low blood sugar.
And the traffic was horrible. I slowly
worked my way through town and turned eastward on Interstate 90. I figured that, once on the interstate, I
could put the hammer down, click on the cruise control, listen to some music
and knock back some miles. Er, no. I got onto the interstate and promptly
stopped.
In Montana, and most of the mountainous northern states, there are two
seasons, ‘winter’ and ‘road construction.’
It was full-on road construction season and traffic on the interstate
was moving no faster than single-digit speeds.
Shit! I should have gassed-up and
eaten breakfast in Missoula.
Since I was crawling towards Butte at an incredibly safe speed of
about 7mph, I called Bernadette and gave her an update.
Bernadette opened with: “And where are you?”
“Parked on Interstate 90 barely east of Missoula.” I explained my situation.
“Where do you plan on spending the night?”
“I’m not entirely sure. I want
to photograph a ghost town that’s near Dillon, can you check availability of
motels in Dillon, Montana?”
“I’ll get online and call you back with info.”
“Great, I’ll be right here, probably right here at the rate I’m moving.”
Traffic eventually passed the construction zone and sped up, then
slowed again for another work area, then sped up. It was frustrating driving. I pulled off the interstate for gas in Deer
Lodge. I filled the tank but couldn’t
get back on the highway, construction workers blocked the ramp.
“Ramp will be open in ten minutes.”
Said the bearded man in the hi-viz vest.
So I drove through McDonalds to get some breakfast. Breakfast wasn’t being served. I got no food. The entrance-ramp to the interstate was still
closed. Ah fuck, I’m stuck in Deer Lodge
Montana and will probably die here!
Dammit!
So I got in line with all the traffic and drove through town to the
interstate entrance ramp on the east side of Deer Lodge. The cops were heavily working the road since
it was the only way back to the interstate highway. Not nice, guys. I didn’t see them shoot anyone….
Not long after I finally got back on the highway, my phone rang. Bernadette began with her usual refrain:
“You’re fucked!”
Oh man, not again! This is
getting freakin’ absurd!
“Every hotel in Dillon that has a website is booked. I might be able to get you a room in Butte
and I can definitely get you a room in Idaho Falls. Even the campground in Bannack State Park is
full.”
“Butte’s no good, I’m darn near there and it’s not even noon, if there
is a room I couldn’t get in it for hours.
I can’t believe Dillon is completely booked. And I can’t even camp in Bannack State Park?! Let me pull off, study the map, do the
mileage-math and call you back.”
So I stopped and studied the map.
I had thought about making a side-trip to Yellowstone since I was in the
area, but the homing instinct was really pulling at me, and I’ve photographed
Yellowstone plenty of times. Hmmm, maybe
Idaho Falls is the way to go? That’ll
make it a long day, five hundred plus miles of driving, and it’s kinda weird
starting in Idaho, driving through Montana, and ending up back in Idaho for the
night. I would be one day closer to home
though…
I called Bernadette back and told her to go ahead and book me that
room in Idaho Falls. I got off the
under-construction highway 90 and turned south toward Dillon on I-15. Interstate 15 was not under construction and had a legal speed limit of 80mph like
I-10 in west Texas. I hauled-ass and
made up time.
I’d re-fueled the car in Deer Lodge but not myself. I dug through the stuff within reach and
found my bag of granola for a snack.
Before leaving Prescott I had made a big bag of ‘gorp’ for munching on
the road, it had some chocolate bits mixed in with the nuts. During the hot days when the car was parked
the chocolate in my granola had melted, and then during the cool nights had
re-solidified. Now, after two weeks of
melt and re-solidify cycles my bag-o-granola was a solid chunk of nuts held
together by chocolate. It was a big
mess, but yummy and filling and it raised my blood sugar just enough so I was a
little less cranky.
I arrived in Dillon just after noon.
Since I’d left Lewiston pre-dawn it was already a long day but I was
covering a lot of miles too. Driving
through Dillion I saw a lot of motels
with empty parking lots which meant I probably could have gotten a room after all, it just would have been in a
smaller mom-and-pop kind of motel that didn’t have a website. I pulled into a McDonalds for lunch and use
of the free wi-fi. While eating yet
another McBurger I consulted MapQuest on my tablet, did the mileage-math in my
head and decided I’d shoot that ghost town and then head to Idaho Falls, I
should arrive there between 4 and 5PM, which would be just fine. I wondered if Idaho Falls even had a ‘rush
hour?’
Two years ago I’d had the ghost town of Bannack, Montana on my list of
places to photograph but had skipped it and instead gone north to Glacier
National Park. That had turned out to be
a Very Bad Idea as most of the park had been closed with snow (in May) and bad
weather had chased my ass across Montana and North Dakota. But now it was sunny and warm and a good day
for photography. Leaving the Dillon
McDonalds with a full belly, I was off to Bannack, finally.
The roads to Bannack included a short drive on the interstate highway,
to a state highway, to a county road, to a barely-paved local road, to a dirt
road and into a dirt parking lot at Bannack State Park. As I drove past the campground I noticed only
one tent, I probably could have camped here too. Don’t trust all the ‘no vacancies’ notices on
certain hotel websites, they’ve probably got rooms but didn’t update their
websites. Sometimes you’ve just got to
‘wing it.’
There were a few cars in the Bannack parking lot but not many. I walked into the ranger’s shack and paid my
six dollars admission. I asked the
ranger-chick if it was possible to go inside any of the buildings. She told me that most of the buildings were
open and I was free to enter any that weren’t locked, just close the door when
I left. Cool!
 |
| Hotel, Bannack Ghost Town, Montana |
I went back to my car and grabbed my hat and vest, shoved a bottle of
water in my vest pocket and mounted my wide-angle zoom lens on my Lumix GX1
micro-four-thirds camera; I was going to shoot some of those building
interiors. I could have carried my Canon
5D and a tripod but that might have looked ‘too professional’ which could have
caught the eye of some ranger who could hassle me about ‘photography
permits.’ I’ve never really had any
hassles about ‘professional photography’ in state and national parks, but I
don’t like calling attention to myself.
Unless I’m on a job, with a paid permit and with assistants and a crew,
I prefer to blend in with the tourons. I
was an early-adopter of the new, small, mirrorless cameras and bought into the
Lumix Micro-Four-Thirds system a few years ago.
The GX1 camera I was using looks like a little amateur point-and-shoot
except it handles like an old-school Leica and I had a
good-for-interior-architecture 14-28mm lens.
And I didn’t use a tripod. I
looked like a tourist, which was exactly the plan. Don’t hassle me, just let me shoot pictures
and I won’t bother anyone!
Bannack is a typical abandoned mining town. It looked like a set from Gunsmoke. One dirt main-drag road through the middle of
town with wooden sidewalks on either side, and one block of building facades
facing the road from each side. The only
brick building in town was the old hotel/bar, all the rest were wooden. And all the expected buildings were there: an
old schoolhouse, the church, the bank and some private residences. Most were open and I photographed them all. I didn’t see or feel any ghosts.
I spent the better part of the afternoon mashing myself into the
corners of those old rooms and photographing the interiors. And they were beautiful! Peeling paint, rotting wallpaper, off-kilter
windows and doors… I had no idea what I would do with all those interior photos
(I did have some vague, pre-visualized ideas) but I had to take the opportunity
I had to photograph them all. I still
had a long drive home with plenty of hours to think about what I could do with
the photos.
 |
| Photographing inside the Bar in the Bannack Hotel |
 |
| Bannack Ghost Town Interior |
After a few hours I’d shot megabytes of photos and had pretty much
documented every building there. I
stopped in the ranger’s shack on my way out to talk to the ranger-chick I’d met
on the way in. She confirmed my
suspicion that Bannack, like the California ghost town in the Sierras, Bodie,
was kept in a state of ‘suspended decay’ by the Park Service. ‘Suspended decay’ means that the decay of the
buildings has been stopped; old decay has not been repaired but new damage is
repaired or replaced with vintage materials.
These old ghost towns would not hold up to extensive tourist traffic if
not maintained, they’d fall to dust otherwise.
I told her they were doing a great job and how glad I was to have taken
the side-trip to see Bannack. All too
often Park Rangers have to deal with law enforcement issues or people
complaining about stupid things like ‘when do they turn the water on at Old
Faithful?’ so I always make a point of saying something nice when I’m impressed
with what the Park Service has done.
The heat had risen inside my black car while it was parked and my
granola had re-melted again. I re-traced
my route back to I-15 and turned southward to Idaho Falls.
Bernadette had booked me into a way overpriced Super 8 motel. I had the reservation number and address in
my phone but I figured I’d see the motel, or a sign for it, from the highway,
but I didn’t. Exiting I-15 at the road
where the motel was supposed to be I didn’t know if it was a right or left
turn, so I turned right. But 50/50 odds
are always against me and after a few miles drive down that road, I saw no
Super 8 motel. Pulling a U-turn I called
Bernadette.
“Where the fuck is that motel?”
She read the directions off their website to me. Yes, I should have turned left, but I still
wouldn’t have found it. I had to make a
couple of other turns before I found it and when I did it was one of those
big-ass high rise Super 8 motels. I
checked in and asked for a first floor room, which again, I couldn’t have. Nope.
I had to schlep my stuff down a hallway to an elevator and then through
a total of six more doors and three more hallways. So much for convenience! Well, they did have a good selection on
satellite TV and I watched an old episode of Doctor Who with Sylvester McCoy
before bed. I think my dinner budget exceeded
the Doctor Who special effects budget!
There was Chili’s restaurant about two blocks from the hotel so I went
there for a sit-down dinner of not fast food.
Oops, another shitty dinner, fast food would have been better after all. Oh well, at least they didn’t screw up my
cocktail!
I slept well and found an exit nearer my car when leaving the next
morning, I only had to haul my stuff down two hallways to an elevator!
The next day I drove to Arco, Idaho and photographed the (less than
impressive) EBR-1, America’s first nuclear reactor used to generate
electricity. I drove a big loop and on
my way back to the interstate I stopped in Atomic City only to find that it was
just too ugly and boring to photograph.
I didn’t spend much time in the area, I’ll bet the background radiation
there is higher than normal…
 |
| EBR-1, decommissioned Nuclear Reactor, Arco, Idaho |
Once back on I-15 it was onwards to Salt Lake City and then a western
turn on I-80 to Wendover and the Bonneville Salt Flats. Bernadette had already booked me a room at
the Knights Inn on the Utah side of Wendover and I found it easily and checked
in. The old dude at the registration
desk looked to be about 500 years old but he was efficient and I was in my room
posthaste. I finally got a first floor
room but it was only because the building only had one floor! I dropped off my stuff in the
less-than-nice-or-clean room and drove one block to the Nevada side of town and
went to a casino buffet for a late lunch.
The last time I was in Wendover the Nevada-side casinos were all in
giant tents and rather impermanent. Now
the casinos were in big high rise buildings.
Come to think of it, I don’t recall seeing any private residences or houses in Wendover, I wonder where the
workers live?
My casino-buffet lunch wasn’t all that bad or expensive and certainly
was better than fast food!
I drove out to the Bonneville speedway (which was a 2-inch deep lake
because of recent rains) and photographed the salt flats at sunset. I think I saw the ghost of Burt Munro!
 |
| Fun on the Bonneville Salt Flats |
The next day was my second to last on the road and was a fairly long
drive. I had a reservation at The Palace
Station, an off-strip hotel/casino in Las Vegas. Calculating a six-hour drive with a 3PM
check-in, I didn’t leave Wendover until after 9AM; no need to hang around Vegas
in the heat waiting for check-in time.
Not far south of Wendover on highway ALT 93 I found another shoe tree
and photographed it. I gassed-up in Ely
and turned on state highway 50 (the loneliest road in America) to connect to
highway 93 south. At the intersection of
highways 50 and 93 there was a new Wind Farm with bright white wind
turbines. If it hadn’t been the worst
midday light, I’d of stopped to photograph the windmills but instead I made a
note to return and photograph the windmills and do some night photography at
the nearby Great Basin National Park.
Maybe I’ll do that next summer?
It seemed like every radio station was playing ‘Yes’ music this
day. Why was there so much great 1970’s
progressive rock by one band being played, I wondered. Sadly, Chris Squire had passed that day and
seemingly all of FM and XM radio was playing tributes.
Once I got to Panaca, Nevada, I was in familiar territory again as
I’ve toured this area on my motorcycle before.
I stopped at the intersection of highways 93 and 375 and photographed
the ‘Extraterrestrial Highway’ sign.
After than I was continually passed by very fast Nevada drivers all the
way to interstate 15. I was cruising
most of the day at 85mph, if that’s too slow for the Nevada drivers then pass
me, you can be the ticket-bait!
Once on I-15 it was a short drive to Las Vegas, Sahara Drive and into
the Palace Station parking lot.
Bernadette and I had chosen The Palace Station for my last night
because of its price and convenience (we’d stayed there before). Although it was a Las Vegas hotel/casino it
was lower priced than most of the shitty hotels where I’d stayed during the
past two and a half weeks. It was
off-strip but only a block from the freeway.
Most importantly it lacked that typical two-mile schlep through the
casino to check-in. No, this was one of
those rare hotels where check-in is near the door and the elevators to the
rooms are near check-in. When you’re
tired from shooting and driving from dawn till dusk for almost three weeks it’s
nice just to walk in a hotel and get to your room without detours.
I was standing in the check-in line with my two aluminum camera cases
in hand when a guy in a suit came out of a door marked ‘VIP Registration,’
nodded towards me and said, “Come this way, I’ll check you in.” Nice!
VIP registration! I was in my
room quickly.
Ah, last day! My own bed
tomorrow night! For now it was time for
a shower, shave, clean clothes and a celebratory cocktail. Putting on my last set of non-grubby clothes
I headed off to the bar where I had a couple of drinks, caught a mellow buzz
and sent some texts, made some phone calls and took care of some business. I walked outdoors to smoke my last cigar and
took another call which lasted for nearly an hour. I had a yummy and filling dinner at one of
the hotel’s restaurants, another cocktail and went back to my room and its
king-sized bed for a good night’s sleep.
After a buffet breakfast the next morning I packed up one last time
and hit the road for home. Once I passed
by Bagdad, Arizona it was just a Sunday morning motorcycle ride from there on
home. I arrived early afternoon, got a
tail-wagging greeting from Bruno the Chihuahua, a big hug from Bernadette and,
at sundown, enjoyed a monsoon thunderstorm from the back deck of my house. Perfect!
The stats from this little road-trip/photo-shoot/adventure are:
4890 miles
8 states
16 days
500 GB – 9389 photos
….and $35.00 under budget!
Conclusions and take-aways:
·
Plan, plan, plan… and be flexible to change
things along the way, on the fly.
DO NOT believe everything you see online
regarding motel availability. Often
there are rooms available even if the
motel website says ‘no vacancy.’ Many
smaller, non-chain motels don’t have websites, often they have rooms available
but you have to either call the directly or go there and ask. Sometimes just showing up and asking is
easier than making a reservation.
There aren’t many decent, inexpensive hotels
left. Motel 6 isn’t even cheap. Budget accordingly.
· Drink!
Stay hydrated. Eat! Keep your blood sugar up so you feel well.
TALK to people.
Be friendly. Chat up the locals
to learn things you wouldn’t otherwise know about. Bars are good for this.
· Watch your back but don’t be paranoid.
· I seek out Mom & Pop style family
restaurants. They’re often the best, but
when they’re not, they’re horrible (you won’t know until it’s too late). Fast food is cheap and has a certain level of
predictable mediocrity.
· Avoid ‘range anxiety,’ gas up frequently.
· Long drives are a great time to THINK. Especially if you travel alone. Keep a tape recorder or small video camera to
take verbal and visual ‘notes.’
·
XM radio is great for long trips because you
won’t lose the station by driving out of range.
· Long car trips are perfect for listening to
concept albums, on this trip I listened to the following long-form epics:
o
Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”
o
Genesis’ “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway”
o
IQ’s “Subterranea”
o
Jethro Tull’s “Thick as a Brick”
o
The Who, “Quadrophenia”
o
Spock’s Beard, “Snow”
o
Alan Parsons’, “I Robot”
o
Marillion, “Brave”
o
Bruce Reaves, “Zero to Sixty”
· Wear BOOTS.
And layers. In the desert a HAT
is a necessity. Always carry a small
knife and a flashlight ---you never know when you’ll need them.
·
Photograph the clichés, it’s OK if you don’t
show them to anyone.
· When photographing, LOOK BEHIND you, you might
see something amazing.
·
Large, stupid animals feed at dawn and dusk,
when the light is best for photography.
Be careful when ‘chasing the light’ and don’t hit an animal!
·
Before road-trips, check websites like
roadsideamerica.com for strange and unexpected photo-ops along your way or at
your destination.
·
BE NICE to park rangers, they have lots of
useful information, talk to them.
I’ve been home 10 weeks now (it’s early September) and I’ll be working
on all the pictures I shot for quite some time, probably through the end of the
year or beyond. It was an intense,
full-immersion photo-shoot that generated a lot of images in a short amount of
time. I divide the task into ‘capture’
and ‘processing.’ Each has its unique
pleasures and pains. I find the
image-capture part to be physically and mentally demanding with occasional
risks to life and limb. The
image-processing part isn’t as physically demanding or potentially dangerous
but requires patience and concentration.
Before I hit the road I figured I’d spend my alone time in the car
thinking about the bullshit I’d been dealing with businesswise. But no, my mental activity was fully occupied
by the task at hand. This was a good
thing because I didn’t even think and
therefore not obsess about any of it, because in the long run, none of it
mattered.
Not talking is kind of nice.
There were a few days where I spoke to no one except to order food or
check into a motel.
I purposely didn’t listen to much news radio or watch news stations in
motels. I did watch The Weather Channel
in motels and, occasionally, NPR on the radio.
XM radio allowed me to listen to the entire Terry Gross interview with
Brian Wilson which was nice. I didn’t
even know there had been another mass shooting at a church until I ‘discovered’
CNN on one motel’s channel lineup. I got
into my ‘own little world’ and didn’t really need to know about some asshole
expressing his second amendment rights/racism anyway. I NEVER listen to AM talk radio (conservative
hate-radio). Why get all worked up about
shit that’s not even true or things I can do nothing about?
I’ve had plenty of bad weather to contend with when I’ve photographed
in these areas in the past. I’d planned
this shoot for June when I hoped the weather would be cooperative. It was good planning but I was lucky too. I had amazingly good weather the whole way.
I’d planned the night photography for dark, new moon nights and that worked out
well. I didn’t get rained on nor did I
have to reschedule anything because of bad weather or bad light. You could say I was prepared for good weather
luck. My luck was so good with the
weather this time that I missed a whole lot of bad things that would have
fucked-up the shoot. For the two and a
half days I was in Lewiston, Idaho, the high temps were near 100 degrees. A few days later, after I’d left, high temps
hit 114. A few weeks after leaving The
Palouse area forest fires sprung up to the northwest and, had those fires been
burning while I was photographing, much of the areas would have been obscured
by smoke. It rained like crazy in Hood
River about a week after I left the area.
I was lucky, lucky, lucky! Luck
favors the prepared, so prepare!
My location photo-shoot philosophy is simple:
Slow down,
observe, pay attention.
If you see it,
shoot it.
Be flexible.
If you want to see more from this photo-shoot, go here:
