If you’ve been following the blog/twitter/facebook page for a while and wondering whatever happened to the road trip I was supposed to tackle this fall, wonder no longer! For, in this blog entry, we will begin the story of “Trip Interrupted: When Things Go Horribly Wrong…And Then Right”.
Part One
To refresh, my trip plans looked a little like this:
It involved me taking a roundabout route to MN and picking up my good friend, Cahlean Klenke of About A Dog Photography. After exploring Minnesota a bit, the two of us planned to explore National Parks in South Dakota, Montana and Wyoming for a week before venturing into Colorado for a week.
She would then fly home and I would continue on, exploring my way south and then east again for about 10 days until I reached Tennessee, where I planned to spend a week photographing in and around Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I would arrive back home sometime in the first week of November.
The first hiccup came along when my car needed repairs less than two weeks before I was to leave. Some of you may be aware of the love affair I have with my Honda Element because of my road trips. I take more pictures of it than myself when on the road…
Thankfully, the repairs were done quickly and weren’t too bad, considering I’ve put nearly 100,000 miles on the car since the spring of 2010. Better the problem show up just before the trip, then on it, yes?
The second hiccup came in the form of my first cold in several years. I was miserable enough that I couldn’t even pack for the trip, let alone hit the road. . I was well enough to leave a few days AFTER originally planned, so I edited my trip to Minnesota down to two long days of driving and we decided to skip the days spent in Minnesota and head directly out west. And I counted myself lucky that I got sick before the trip, rather than on it.
Hiccups three and four showed their aggravating faces the day I reached Minnesota. That night the government shut down, which meant NO National Park access. We took a good look at the first week of our plans and every day and night included National Parks. After some consideration, we decided we would head west as planned and sort of skirt around the planned stops, playing the first week by ear and hoping the government reopened.
The last hiccup, which was less a hiccup than a problem that brought all our plans to a screeching halt involved me taking a little ambulance ride to the hospital…
To be continued!