There comes a time in life when we wonder, what we’re doing, where we’re going and if there isn’t something more to life. For me, that time came when I was 36 years old. I was staring at a computer screen, manipulating spread sheets, sitting in meetings, sending and deleting emails and generally ready to pull out what hair I had left for about 14 hours a day. I was the director of search and affiliate marketing at an online marketing agency. It was a decent job by most measures. I had vacation time. I traveled around the country to speak at conferences quarterly but I had no life and the life was slowly getting sucked out of me. I left that life behind and created a collection of close to 20,000 National park wall art scenes from all over the US and Canada.
In February of 2010, I quit my job and planned to head west to get the spring ski pass at Snowbird Ski Resort. The plan was to rent a room and ski till the slopes closed. Then I would drive back to Philly and find computer screen to stare at in another cubicle. While in Utah I fell madly in love. Not with a person, who wants to date someone who purposely starts living in out of their car or often in it?
When the Snowbird ski slopes started closing midweek in the spring, I took at trip down to Moab. It was there that I fell in love. I”d never been to Moab before, never been to Arches National Park before and never been to any national park before. I drove up through the entrance to Arches and stood at the “Wall Street” overlook. I’d never seen anything like it before. My eyes teared up at the sites at Arches. After a day driving through the park and doing some hiking, I checked in at the Lazy Lizard, a hostel.
Like most people in the US, I had no idea what a hostel was. What I did know is that when I looked for a place to stay in Moab, there were lots of expensive hotels and then their was the Lazy Lizard that had rates that ranged between $10 and maybe $40 per night. At that time I wasn’t too sure about just renting a bed in a room for $10 so I got a private cabin that was probably around $30/night at the time. It was my first experience with hostel life and would open the door to years of budget travel sharing bunk rooms with strangers from all over the world.
As the time at Snowbird was coming to an end, Mammoth Mountain was running online ads advertising skiing every day until July 4th, 2010. I had no idea wear Mammoth Mountain was really. I knew it was in California but I’d never been out to the Eastern Sierras before but figured what the heck, I’ll buy the season pass, pack up the car and drive to Mammoth and let the cards fall where they may. After upgrading to my first smart phone in Utah (A Palm PRE, that is probably still my favorite phone of all time), I drove all night and caught sunrise at Mammoth before booking a room at the Motel 6 in Mammoth Lakes. They were nice enough to let me check in shortly after sunrise. I stayed there two nights while looking for a longer term rental in Mammoth Lakes. An old hotel that was scheduled for demolition at some point called “Royal Pines” ended up being home for the next two months or so.
While out in Mammoth Lakes I skied every day. Young Forever by JayZ blasted on the car radio to and from the slopes every day. It was pretty fucking awesome! As the ski season wound down, I realized I Was near Yosemite National Park, Death Valley National Park and lots of other amazing sights along Highway 395. The stay at Royal Pines was extended and the woman who was running it was quite flexible and allowed me to add on a few days or a week at a time.
At that time I started a blog that no longer exists. It consisted of a daily diary things I’d seen and done along with reviews of hiking trails, resorts, campgrounds and similar things. A little point and shoot Panasonic Lumix camera supplied the photos for the blog. It got some traffic after a few years but never really became much of an asset so the hosting was eventually not renewed. Somewhere along the way I discovered Mono Lake and took some cool sunset shots there. The California state parks association discovered them and they won monthly photo contest. It was at that moment that I thought I might actually be handy with a camera and capture images that people might like as wall art. I upgraded from a pint and shoot camera to a Canon Rebel of some sort, started to learn the ins and outs of photography and more or less become obsessed with it.
That initial two month road trip turned into about 8 months and ended up including Grand Teton National Park (and the Teton Hostel), Yellowstone National Park (and the Madison Hostel is West Yellowstone) as well as Badlands National Park and others in South Dakota and a few others on the way back to Philly. Upon return to Philly, I knew that there was NO WAY IN HELL I was ready to go back to a computer screen in a cubicle because there was soooo much to see, do and experience right here in the United States (and later Canada.
That is how the road trip/photography adventure began and what provided the motivation to wander the continental United States and parts of Canada for the better part of 10 years up until the COVID pandemic came roaring in.