After 5723 miles over the last 18 days, and more than 95 hours of driving, I am home to roost for a while. The dual-journey was a once-in-a-lifetime (well, maybe once-in-a-decade) experience, and I’m happy about every moment of it.

Are there things I would’ve changed? You bet.

I would’ve spent more time stopping and smelling the roses. Darla’s job is to ensure I do that, and since she wasn’t there for the big part of the journey, I didn’t do enough of it, especially on my race through the desert and back to St. Louis.

I would’ve spent more time exploring Yosemite after DLWS, and seeing what it had to offer. The weather situation was getting dicey (at the time; ended up not being an issue), so I didn’t chance it.

I would’ve probably planned the two excursions during separate timeframes. Lingering somewhere would’ve been easier to pull off without another schedule I had to hit. Don’t get me wrong — I was really glad to go home for Thanksgiving, but lining up those travel schedules was tough.

I wouldn’t have lugged nearly as much stuff on the trip to Yosemite. I waaaaay overpacked, on both supplies and gear. Live and learn, I guess.

All things considered though, I had a great vacation. I learned tons at Yosemite, and I saw my family. How could it get much better than that?

Going home to Chattanooga is always strange for me. Invariably, I end up travelling streets that I’ve been on gazillions of times, but so long ago that I don’t remember the landmarks well, or they’ve changed so much that I don’t recognize them. Of course, Siobhan and Darla don’t have the points of reference, so I feel like I sound like Grandpa Simpson describing the olden days.

No matter. Today was our down day, and that meant Ankar’s Hoagies.

When I was running around with the Chattanooga Science Fiction Association (CSFA) in the 70s, we would almost always invade the original (and, at that time, the only) Ankar’s on Brainerd Road. Aside from the terrific food, and the ability to manage 20+ folks hitting them at once, they also had an Asteroids sit-down coin-op. I cut my teeth on that machine, and it started me video gaming, something that I continued heavily for another ten years or more. Those were fun times, and really come back to the surface when I get my standard meal at Ankar’s: steak in a sack, onion rings, and and a limeaid.

So, I see my ghosts — locations and events — and just smile quietly, and see Darla and Sio with me, enjoying Grandpa Simpson chowing down on his history.

And indeed, I cross several rivers, and traveled through many a wood, and wound up at Grandma’s place in Maryville.

I enjoy that drive, and one of these days, I’ll take my time, and enjoy the stops along the way. It’s beautiful up there, and it reminds me so much of why I like the mountains of eastern Tennessee.

Another is the people. I took all us to lunch at Aubrey’s Restaurant, an east Tennessee chain serving really good Southern food. Our waitress was this cute little teenager, who had a smile that wouldn’t quit, and kept calling all of us honey, or sweetie or any of a number of other endearments. That’s not to say that everyone in the South is as friendly as she was, but that’s certainly a good representative of the best that I like in folks from back home.

Grandma’s doing well, and that’s always good to see. I really hope that when I’m 83, I’m doing as well!

We also drove to Oak Ridge to visit Mom’s sister Frances. She’s a hoot, and it was fun catching up with her. Another one of my fans, of which I can never have too many!

A drive home after sunset, and we wound our way up the mountain, to home, dinner, and sleep.

Today, I am thankful for my family, more than anything.

There’s a hunt at Prentice Cooper this weekend, so this was the only chance I had to visit Dad at the cemetary. It was a pretty day for a visit, and it was good to see that all was well up on The Mountain.

It still stings so bad to not have Dad’s wit, spirit and life at the table this time of year. When August rolls around, it hurts, but so does fall.

Mom put on a huge spread today (single-handed, no less), and made enough food to feed all five of us many times over. Given that, we’re taking a big ol’ doggie bag to Maryville tomorrow when we visit Grandma. Another short drive (maybe 300 miles roundtrip), and a chip shot compared against the panorama of this ginormous trip I’ve been undertaking.

Beck and I ran to Best Buy to pick up some printer cartridge for the HP, and saw a line of folks that appeared to be setting up to camp out for the night. When we asked inside what they were there for, the answer was short.

XBox 360.

There were probably fifty folks camping out, but for only thirty machines. In fact, the thirty lucky future owners were already known. These folks were camping out just in case one of the thirty folks on the list didn’t show up. That’s amazing. And, these folks would be camping out until 9am tomorrow to wait for the XBox they wouldn’t get.

Not me. No interest, and those folks being outside were just that fewer folks I had to go wait through in the checkout line!

If you’ve been following along, you’ve probably noticed the dearth of photos. Well, today I’ve fixed that, and now have the dailies filed appropriately.

One thing to note — I’ve just upgraded to a new version of JAlbum, and it looks like there are some quirks with some of the generated pages. I think this stems from having some non-JPG files in the directories (like PSDs, etc.), so if the navigation seems quirky sometimes, it is. I’m working to fix it, but it may not happen until I get back from The Mountain next week.

Enjoy!

[645 miles today; 4233 miles on the journey; 4350 total miles (including miles at Yosemite). I-40E from Shamrock TX to Oklahoma City OK; I-44E from Oklahoma City OK to Ellisville MO. Approximately 73 hours of total driving time, and I averaged 20.6 mpg through the trip.]

Today’s drive was the big one — the push for home. After a night’s stay in the nicest bed of the trip at the Best Western in Shamrock TX, I got up early, and pointed the hood toward Missouri.

Being Saturday, I thought there wouldn’t be much traffic, and that was true… until I got to Oklahoma City OK. I don’t know what was going on there, but there were loads of cars on the road, and made for some interesting driving. It’s always tough to keep the speed limit when the locals are zooming up on your rear bumper and then on around you.

It was nice to see gas prices in Missouri below $2/gal. The cheapest gas I found on the trip was $1.839 in Oklahoma, but the mid-$1.90s were pleasant to see too.

So, I’m home for a couple of days, and then it’s off to Mom’s for Thanksgiving. I think this little break between drives was a good idea. I feel pretty good, but this’ll give me a chance to recharge my batteries a bit, and ensure that I have a great stay at Mom’s over the holiday.

[710 miles today; 3587 miles so far. I-40E from Flagstaff AZ to Shamrock TX.]

Today’s drive was through some beautiful country. I love the desert, and the way it looks as the sun comes up. I left Flagstaff this morning an hour an a half before sunrise, and watched the sun light up the desert. Man, was that beautiful! If I weren’t so intent to get home, I would’ve stopped and done some shooting.

So, tonight, I’ve landed in Shamrock TX, very close to the Texas/Oklahoma border. That’ll make for about 630 miles tomorrow, and that gets me home in time for dinner. Way cool!

[679 miles today; 2877 miles so far. Lots of state highways, and finally I-40E to Flagstaff AZ.]

This morning brought with it my departure from Yosemite, and the beginning of The Son of the Big Drive. I spent a good deal of time trying to figure out a route that would get me to I-40 — the weather to the north is just too unpredictable right now, and there has been a fairly large amount of snow on the I-70 route, as well as the more northern route into Yellowstone. So, the track through the desert was the path of choice.

I left the lodge in the dark, and wound my way through the park, reflecting on the class, and still feeling overwhelmed with what I’ve seen happen to my photography over the last few days. I watched the park sites pass by, basqued in the light of the full moon, and said my mental goodbyes.

Aside from the slow start through the park roads, and the two-lane feeder roads, the trip to Flagstaff was uneventful. However, the air in southern California was the stinkiest I have smelled in a long time! Blecch!

Flagstaff presented itself just as the sun was setting, and I got myself grounded for the night.

Tomorrow: East to Texas!

This morning’s shoot started around Tenaya Creek. We started with a loooong walk — probably better than three miles — and wound up at the creek.

The walk was terrific, and there were all kinds of downed trees, dry stream beds and other cool things to shoot. Very nice. I liked the creek the best though. After my success yesterday with the flowing water, I’m really starting to enjoy shooting long shoots of moving water. I guess I’ve always liked those shots, but I’ve never spent the time to really do it right!

During high noon, we worked on our images, and I did some additional printing, this time on lustre paper (low-gloss). I printed some of the same images that I did yesterday with matte paper, and really found I liked the results of the lustre paper. I’m surprised. I really had been turned off of the look of gloss prints, but for some reason, these really appealed to me. Perhaps that’s because the subject material wasn’t as good!

We dashed from high noon to our first location of the sunset shoot — a meadow in view of El Capitan. Once again, I kinda drew a blank, but shot a few things of interest. We then moved to the Tunnel View overlook, and I found some nice views of El Cap and Half Dome. The lighting was a little better tonight than from Glacier Point on Monday night, but still wasn’t as electric as it could’ve been. Oh well!

We broke up, went to dinner, and returned for our closing session. Moose really praised us on how far we’d come, and Vincent talked to us for an hour about all things philosophical and photographical. We sipped on wine and beer, had some munchies, and then the participant slideshow began. And right there, first up in the show were my photos, on the big screen for all to enjoy. I gasped at seeing my work in such a huge format. And then… I heard folks in the audience oooh and aaah at them. I elicited response from folks with my work — what a rush!!!!!

And, after the slideshow, we said our goodbyes, with Moose handing each of us a class photo, signed by him, Vincent and Ken. That was a cool.

So, DLWS is over for me. I can’t believe I got to go, can’t believe I went through it all, and am just dumbfounded at how much better my process is than it was. It was so definitely worth the investment of time and money! Now, I’m inspired, have a fire lit, and am really hot to get some of work printed properly and (hopefully) sold.