Driving Down the Road
The hardest part about photographing out west is the long trip to get there. This blog is actually for the last two days. I left Cookeville about 3:30 Friday afternoon and got caught in both Labor Day Weekend Traffic then a bottleneck from an accident after getting through Nashville. I recommend anyone going on a trip to consider the times they will be going through a major city because rush hour traffic is bad for the soul. I ended up stopping to sleep at the Oklahoma Visitors Center about 1 a.m. I picked up again about 7 a.m.Saturday morning (This Morning) and continued to drive. I hit a major rain squall not long after crossing from Texas in to New Mexico, The thing out here is you can see a storm coming from a long way off it makes for some very dramatic scenery. I pulled in to a Red Roof Inn in Gallup, New Mexico about 11:00 p.m. CST.
People sometimes ask me why I drive these long distances instead of flying and renting a car. For me the answer is because you see so much on the way out and the way back. Being born and raised in Tennessee and not traveling much when I was younger leads to me being able to appreciate a differences in other areas of the country. I’ve heard many people say that the plains are boring to drive through but I enjoy the fact they’re different and that you can see for miles. Other reasons I drive include worrying about camera gear and the shear amount of stuff I bring with me. If you figure clothes, camera gear, camping gear, snacks, water (I’m in the desert this go around), your looking at a lot of stuff to get into baggage. Flying is not as simple as it once was.
This trip I will be doing a lot in the first week trying to get in a lot of places in before finally hitting Las Vegas where I will pick up my wife and have a few days there. We will then continue at a more leisurely pace back to Cookeville. It should be a wonderful trip for my wife who has not yet been out west. She’ll get to see the desert, the grand canyon, and we will then go through the mountains to end up at Estes Park, Colorado before making the trip home.
Here’s the rough intinerary:
2. Friday – Travel
3. Saturday – Travel
4. Sunday Canyon De Chelly, Moab.
5. Monday – Arches, Canyonlands, Deadhorse
6. Tuesday – Capitol Reef
7. Wednesday – Bryce, Zion
8. Thursday – Zion
9. Friday – Page
10. Saturday – Page
11. Sunday – Las Vegas
12. Monday – Las Vegas
13. Tuesday – Grand Canyon,Sedona
14. Wednesday – sedona-Durango
15. Thursday – Durango – Carbondale
16. Friday – Carbondale – Estes Park
17. Saturday – Estes Park to St. Louis
18. Sunday – St. Louis to Cookeville
