The adventures and various works of a photographer, road tripper, former patron of the local arts, aspiring app developer, and late night coffee drinker and conversationalist.
I've made many long road trips over the past decade or so, with most of my nights on the road having been spent in various motels across the U.S. and Canada. For the past several years, I've mostly made use of Booking.com to book my lodgings whenever I'm not able to stay with friends or family. Booking.com has proven to be a great resource for finding places along my way, particularly when I'm trying to decide whether to stop for the night or if I can continue a bit farther onward. I can look for patterns or trends among recent reviews and also try to find last minute deals. But there's an apparent issue with this website that needs to be acknowledged, one I've encountered a couple of times and which has called their ratings' reliability into question for me. And it's this: I've posted several reviews on the site in recent years, and the two most negative ones have both been deleted.
Here is another collection of vintage photo snapshots and slides, depicting (mostly) locations I have visited during various road trips across the U.S. and Canada. As before, these are mostly paired with my own photos of the same or similar locations.
Entering Idaho
Idaho was one of the last states I visited in the Lower 48, mostly because its location is not en route to any destination I've ever been interested in visiting. In 2021, I made the 110 mile drive north from South Jordan, Utah in order to set foot in the state and finally cross it off my list. I was struck by how much the Idaho welcome sign on Interstate 15 reminded me of the old Yahoo! logos. As shown in the top photo, the state once made use of a more traditional (but less eye-catching) style of design.
Entering Idaho, unknown date
Continue reading "More vintage photo snapshots"
I'm an informal collector of vintage and antique photo snapshots and slides. Professionally taken pictures of course have their own particular charm and value, but when I'm perusing antique malls and estate sales, it's the vintage stuff I'm on the lookout for. My tastes trend heavily toward depictions of places I have visited, historical oddities and one of a kind items, children/families, local history, and the occasional random, heartwarming or otherwise eye pleasing snapshot. I pick these up wherever I find them, whether at the aforementioned antique malls and estate sales, online listings, or anywhere else they happen to cross my path.
Here I present a selection of items from my vintage photo collection, all of which depict locations I've visited during my various road trips across the United States and Canada. They are accompanied by some of my own photos of the same or similar locations.
Grand Canyon, 1922
I visited the Grand Canyon's North Rim in October of 2021. The writing on one of my pair of antique photos identifies the views as having been recorded to film in June 1922, some 99 years prior to my visit.
Grand Canyon, June 1922
Continue reading "Scenes from my vintage photo collection"
Documenting thirteen years' worth of big road trips is a challenge at any time, but it's all the more so when you're trying to do it long after the fact. If by some chance you happened to visit this site before the 2021 revamp (and you had the appropriate direct links), you would have been able to see travelogs for 2012, 2013, and 2014 on some very simple webpages. These were thrown together while I was actually on the road using a laptop and motel room wifi, and were intended to cover highlights of each trip for people back home. I stopped doing these in 2015 due to the excessive time I was spending going through all the material and putting it together every few days while on the road - during my supposed vacation, I would rather do something else. But when home and not running around North America, collecting all my big road adventures together in detail on the site has been a long time coming.
Documenting thirteen years' worth of big road trips is a challenge at any time, but it's all the more so when you're trying to do it long after the fact. If by some chance you happened to visit this site before the 2021 revamp (and you had the appropriate direct links), you would have been able to see travelogs for 2012, 2013, and 2014 on some very simple webpages. These were thrown together while I was actually on the road using a laptop and motel room wifi, and were intended to cover highlights of each trip for people back home. I stopped doing these in 2015 due to the excessive time I was spending going through all the material and putting it together every few days while on the road - during my supposed vacation, I would rather do something else. But when home and not running around North America, collecting all my big road adventures together in detail on the site has been a long time coming.