2000 Miles with Plains, Mountains, Deserts, Zion National Park, and a Wedding

Jack-Jack, my plucky little car taking a break in Wyoming

August 10th marked the first day of a new journey. That day, I packed everything I could fit into my little-big car and took off for California leaving the Midwest behind. What followed was a five day, 2000 mile trek across the country, through Chicago rush hour, the endless plains of Iowa and Nebraska, crazy mountain passes, hours of hot desert and an incredible National Park.

Hoping to have time for exploring and photography, I picked sleep spots that were six hours apart. As it turns out, six hours plus morning prep, lunch, dinner and gas/rest stops still takes up a massive amount of the day and didn't leave much free time. Regardless, we were able to make a couple stops along the way.

One such stop was Ames Monument in Wyoming.

Who knew we had a 60 foot tall pyramid? It turns out this monument, built in 1880, marks the then highest point on the transcontinental railroad at 8,247 feet and is dedicated to Oakes Ames and Oliver Ames, Jr., financiers of the Union Pacific Railroad.

What I didn't know until after leaving the area is that not far from the monument is a ghost town caused by the tracks being twice relocated further south. I'm definitely going to need to head back to check that out.

An isolated home, not far from Ames Monument

Even with how much time was spent on the road, weather was largely on our side. There were great puffy clouds in the mornings, clear skies in the afternoons and warm days throughout. Although there were a few storms on the horizon, with one exception, they left us alone.

Things changed pretty drastically as we neared Utah as long flat stretches of fields buckled up into rocky bluffs and mountains.

Coming through the mountains into Salt Lake City

After a brief stay and a quick wedding celebration in Salt Lake City, we headed South.

Our last big stop on the way through Utah was Zion National Park, and what a finish! With only a couple hours of light, we barely scratched the surface of what there is to see, but I fell in love with the area immediately. We stayed in the park for an impromptu portrait session until it was too dark to see before leaving regretfully.

A well deserved break in Zion National Park

Our loud conversation didn't seem to unnerve this bighorn ram

Bighorn Ram wandering by in Zion National Park

Zion was definitely the highlight of the journey and given how little we were able to explore, I'm eager to head back. It's amazing how much variety there is in this country, I don't know why I haven't explored it more. I can't wait for the next road trip, next time with more free time and less scheduling.

I'll be sharing photos from the Zion park portraits next. Stay tuned and thanks for reading!

Last November I made my first significant relocation, moving from a small Wisconsin city of about 70,000 people to Chicago. Needless to say, this was a pretty big change in many ways and in hindsight, November was probably the worst time to transplant myself to a new home. During the dark and dreary evenings of winter I sure don't feel much impetus to explore or meet new people and what a long, cold winter it was.

During the doldrums of winter, I found inspiration in an unlikely place, my new office. Several miles west of the city and nearly a dozen floors up, I discovered that I was blessed with a great view of the skyline. One day, impressed enough with the view, I took a photo with my phone, edited it, and shared it on Instagram. I noticed a drastically different view the next day and repeated the process and I suddenly found myself mentally committing to a photo-a-day challenge.

Having not done a Photo 365 before, I decided on some ground rules right away:

I would post one picture of the skyline, every day, even days I wasn't in the office
On days I was in the office, the photo must be taken the same day
To cover days I wasn't in the office, I would take extra pictures during the week to create a backlog
Once edited and shared, I would delete the original photos. This was mainly to help make sure I didn't accidentally repeat. Somehow, this happened anyway.

125 (and counting!) photos, several different editing tools and changes in format later and I'm continually surprised by the dramatic differences from day to day. So far, this has been a great experience. By making sure that I'm taking and sharing at least one picture every day, I'm creating a habit. I've played with several different editing options, from solely using Instagram to a juggled combination of #VSCOCam, #Retouch and #SquareInstaPic for getting some variety in composition.

One big thing that I've learned however is that limiting myself to only pictures I took the same day has resulted in there being many mediocre and uninteresting photos drowning out the ones that I'm especially proud of. If I were to start again (and perhaps moving forward) I would allow myself more flexibility in this area. This would also mean I would need to be more diligent about taking several photos on the "good" days.

I'm excited to be nearing the 6 month milestone, and even more excited to see how else the view will change. Fall should be particularly fun.

Thanks for watching!

Destination: Los Angeles

Personal Project: Daily Chicago

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