I’d been itching to get back there with a bunch of snow on the ground… In fact, it was all I could to wait until the storm was over so it would be safe.

when the wind started blowing, the powder flew around me

From last week. It’s all gone now, of course.

This was supposed to be the shortest day, only 5 hours of driving. Actually, it’s really great it was a short day because we didn’t get started until well after noon due to my check engine light coming on. I forgot to document any of this part of the trip, of course. About an hour before reaching Winchester on Friday night, my check engine light came on. We checked for the closest dealership, and luckily enough it was in Winchester! We tried to call, but their service department was already closed.

The next morning, we arrived at the dealership just after it opened, and they were so incredibly nice to us. They worked us in even though it was a Saturday morning, and provided us with lots of free hot chocolate. As it turns out, it is a good thing we stopped instead of making headway to NY, because they replaced the coil in cylinder #4. I’m not entirely sure what that means, but it sounds bad. Sadly, it was still around 10 or 11 degrees F, and they weren’t able to thaw my windshield wiper motor out enough to use it, so we still had to make a couple pit stops to clean the windshield.

Another quick note: our hotel in Winchester was awesome. And with priceline I got this 3.5 star hotel for an incredible $55 deal! Most of the hotels we stayed at along the way were purchased in the late afternoon with free wifi at a Starbucks, and they were all nice. But the George Washington Historic Hotel just finished a $25 million renovation and was adorable. The bellboy gave us a tour of the old ballroom, vault, and original mail box. Of course, I forgot to take photos of that, too — except for these of the window in the morning.

then on to west virginia!

maryland!

and pennsylvania!

somewhere in one those states I accumulated a massive dust spot on the 5D sensor. not that you’ll see it, but it’s quite annoying

yep, starting to get closer to the eastern seaboard…

but still in farm country for a bit

first time I’ve seen this in a while!

saw lots of these “live your dreams” billboards

and we also started seeing lots of these. I call them christmas village towns, because they look like my mom’s christmas village that we put out every year

getting close to the next state. any guesses?

no, really! last chance, any guesses?

hee hee
new jersey!

more ice

yep, definitely new jersey

rant: I’m really pissed at new york. every state had a nice if not pretty welcome sign, but apparently new york can’t see fit to put one up when crossing from new jersey to staten island on the gothels bridge. in fact, i almost missed the stupid staten island sign because I was looking for a welcome to new york sign.

so, just for that, I think I’m going to keep my CA driver’s license. so there!

a landfill

verrazano bridge

view of nyc from the bridge. we skirted around it to avoid traffic

yeah, still not going to give up my CA driver’s license. it’s probably the only DMV photo I’ll ever look good in, and I won’t give that up.

Another day, another car problem? Yeah, just wait for the next day! We thought we flushed all of the water-based windshield wiper fluid out of my car by now, but as it turned out… not so much.

I think it was 9 degrees F that morning when leaving the hotel? But at least it was sunny again!

In addition to very large metal crosses, we started seeing signs like this along route 40

and is this not one of the best backdrops ever? too bad it’s a good 2 days of driving from new york…

another river. I recall many in tennessee

lots of ice on the rocky walls, too

the next two were taken very close together. huge difference, no?

exactly what every traveler wants to see: detour signs

never been real into landscape photography, but I was loving the countryside in tennessee and virginia

virginia!

yep, chose our route specifically to avoid DC

yeah, virginia was not without humor either

welcome to wytheville, va. they sure seem happy to welcome everyone

the sky behind us

the wind was killing us driving through these passes… and yes, this is right about the time the check engine light came on. more on that later

Only two states on Thursday, but as it turns out Tennessee is kind of wide. We also had kind of a late start, seeing as it was snowing as we left the hotel and my tires suddenly needed more air. They don’t exactly mark “air” at gas stations in Fort Smith the way they do back home, and eventually we just found a random hose attached to a building. We drove through the beautiful Ozark area, and saw many funny and strange signs along the way. That was kind of the theme of the day.

It was cloudy all day, but didn’t snow a whole lot after we got on the road. I forgot to take a picture of snow all over my car since I was worried about the tire pressure, so here’s  the first image of the day; with a little snow on the ground.

Fun sign time! Including an odd combination of signs off the interstate to start with

Besides being an incredibly beautiful drive, Arkansas had lots of humorous signs.

They weren’t all funny. This one, actually very sad.

maybe everyone else doesn’t think this funny, but I like that the “cotton plant” makes a major sign like this

then on to a few scenics, starting with more bird migration (I think)

incredible sky for a while that afternoon

and then behind us, the clouds breaking

anyone want to explain this to me?

crossing the Mississippi River. they make the guardrails too high to get a decent picture

tennessee!

we thought we’d get some BBQ for a late lunch in memphis, but as it turns out, good BBQ is in sketchy areas. and I’m a little too attached to the valuable computer and camera equiptment I had in the car, so we didn’t stop for BBQ

and then, by the time we actually finished lunch on the outskirts of memphis and got back on the road, that was pretty much the end of daylight

Or, snow morning. I got out and made it count.

Yep, we were in four states on Wednesday! Granted, it was the narrowest part of Texas, and also granted, we started before sunrise and ended after sunset and it was absolutely as long a haul as it sounds.

leaving Albuquerque after an oh-so-hearty IHOP breakfast

sunrise!

billboards, anyone?

this bridge was seen in The Grapes of Wrath, which is I suppose this town’s claim to fame

however, I think this proud business should be their claim to fame :)

texas!

oh, and how could we ever forget this?

and the leaning tower of water

oklahoma!

anyone else noticing that as soon as we enter Oklahoma, the sky starts getting darker? yeah?

look! I just hit 25,000 miles! yep, I’m a total dork about things like this

hmmm…. texaco or mexico?

okay, so I’m a bad road trip photographer. I blew out the pretty Arkansas sign, so you just get the boring state line sign instead

fort smith, ak – a welcome site to some travel weary eyes

We left Carefree and got on the road, albeit with a bit of a late start.

And soon we left behind the land of cactus

and entered the flat plains as we made our way north towards Flagstaff

and this is where Road Trip Lesson #1 comes in: just because it’s okay to wear flip flops when you leave a place, doesn’t mean it’s okay to continue wearing them over the next few hundred miles!

and the sister to that, Road Trip Lesson #2: Spontaneous snowball fights by the side of the road are not at all advisable when wearing said flip flops.

figuring this might be the last time I see a road sign for Los Angeles for a while!

and since I have no problem posting road-weary photos of anyone else, here is one of me, too, in front of the world’s longest map of route 66

New Mexico!

I love this sunset shot just past the border

and just what everyone expects to see in New Mexico, right?

and this one, I also love

These were all taken in and around Carefree, AZ

all in all, probably not the best hill to roll down

I love this one, the moodiness encroaching

hey photographers, look! I, too, can shoot at f/11 once in a while

this is another favorite from the day

one of Scottsdale’s finest drove by me while photographing here. I’m pretty sure I was trespassing, and definitely was parked illegally, so I thought I’d get yelled at. instead he just waved and kept on. :)

I’m under no illusions that I have a nice car, but it looked pretty and sparkly for once…

we received a really interesting lecture about saguaro cactus from one of the carefree resort campfire guys– I had no idea they were so old or complicated!

Just before Imaging USA in Phoenix, we started the trek from Southern California to Carefree, AZ. Here are a few (okay, a lot) of my favorites along the way:

The one and only Barbie, near Mattel headquarters

Can’t forget a real freeway interchange before leaving the land of freeways

Passing by the Palm Desert area

The lone little cabin in this one kind of makes the image for me

this picture is not at all remarkable, but it shows the beginning of the dust storm on the right of the frame

getting a little closer to the dust storm

and finally in the storm

we took a quick coffee break and found a fun wall. he’ll be not so happy with this being posted, I think

making headway into the desert

then, just past the arizona border, we saw the most amazing moonrise. it was truly one of the more beautiful things I’ve seen! the first image is just as the sun was setting, with the shadow of the mountains behind us casting onto the mountains ahead

a few more of the moonrise over the next 20 minutes or so

and then the sun actually set and taking pictures from inside the car on the bumpy road was not so easy anymore

I’ve been looking forward to documenting my road trip, but never thought I’d see such an amazing scene on the first day! Just after crossing the border into Arizona, I saw the most amazing full moon rising over the mountains in the distance. I took a fair amount of pictures trying to get the perfect shot, and I think I’m pretty happy with the results.

I surprised myself and did something completely tourist-y the other day. I went to the Statue of Liberty. I really didn’t intend to, but am glad I did. Ellis Island is very interesting, far more interesting than Liberty Island.

But that’s not the point of this post. The point is that on the subway ride home I had a window seat and saw the most incredible graveyard. So yesterday in the midst of peak color, I went exploring. It’s actually 3 different graveyards, but I primarily photographed in only one of them, as it was more decrepit and clearly let go. The interesting thing is that there are graves from as recent as 2007, and yet the cemetary has obviously been headed toward ruin a lot longer than that.

At one point we met the caretaker of the side that was, well, taken care of better. He explained while there were so many gates and arches. Sections of the cemetary were sold in societies of 50 or 100 sites.

Sadly, there were many vandalized areas

More random limbs

I’m glad I went yesterday… can’t quite imagine myself walking around a graveyard with today’s gloomy weather!