Eastern Road Trips
I was born and raised in Arizona, lived there most of my life, and I’ll freely admit to a certain amount of bias when it comes to my preferred venue for road trips. I like big mountains, big skies, and wide open vistas of forests and deserts and grasslands, unspoiled nature that’s as close as possible to being just the way it was when it was made. This website tends to lean in the same direction, with an emphasis on lands and territories that lie west of the Mississippi River.
I’m not disparaging the East in any way. I’m merely admitting my ignorance, because despite having spent a good number of years living and working in places like St. Louis, Washington, and New York, I rarely got out of those cities, so I never got to know the roads. That’s an oversight I hope to correct, if I can ever find the time.
My overarching theme of “Travel by Road to the World’s Wild Places“ will be stretched all the way to the sidelines in this section, replaced by an assortment of posts with a specific emphasis on travel photography. My upcoming “Dawn Patrol” series will detail the best way to shoot the monuments in Washington D.C., followed by an odyssey among the autumn leaves in Vermont, and a series on events in our nation’s capital, including the Cherry Blossom Festival, Memorial Day, and the Fourth of July.
It’s a work in progress, so if anything mentioned sparks your interest, check back!
Click any photo in the slide show below to display the images full screen, with captions.
Postcards from the East
This is an interactive Table of Contents. Click the pictures to open the pages.
Washington D.C. for Photographers
Each weekend I’d focus on a different monument, and I’d shoot them from every conceivable angle, before, during, and after the golden hour of the sunrise. Why the weekend? Because, grasshopper, on weekend mornings, there are no commuters, so there is no traffic, no parked cars, no people in the way of your photo shoot!
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The slightly elevated position of the Lincoln Memorial gives photographers a clear line of sight from every vantage point, with a multitude of options for interesting compositions. But if you want the very best light, and the smallest crowds, you're going to have to get out there at sunrise!
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As a subject for photographers, the Jefferson has it all: columns and curves, sculpture, carved inscriptions, a dome! The Tidal Basin serves as a reflecting pool, and, for a couple of weeks every spring, the whole business is surrounded by flowering cherry trees.
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Shoot the flower buds when they first emerge, shoot them again when they're in full florescence, and if you can swing it, one last time when they start to drop, and you have pink petals falling around you like rain...
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There's nothing like a good road trip. Whether you're flying solo or with your family, on a motorcycle or in an RV, across your state or across the country, the important thing is that you're out there, away from your town, your work, your routine, meeting new people, seeing new sights, building the best kind of memories while living your life to the fullest.
Are you a veteran road tripper who loves grand vistas, or someone who's never done it, but would love to try? Either way, you should consider making the Southwestern U.S. the scene of your own next adventure.
A few years ago I wrote a book about road trips in Arizona and New Mexico that's a lot like this website, packed with interesting information, and illustrated with beautiful photographs. Check it out! You can find it on Amazon, and at all other major booksellers.
