Explain?

Growing weary of Instagram and its bugs (though you can find me there at @justdrivingthru still) and desirous of being able to write and share in a setting beyond Flickr (though you can find more and better photographs there @justdrivingthru as well) I decided to expound on my travels and travails on a unique and customized platform, which you’ve found. Congratulations! And thank you for making it this far. It’s amazing what technology can do–photographers in the 15th and 16th Century had to press their photographs by hand, and you know the writers of the era were standing there, composing vitriolic epigrams as they waiting for their turn.

What equipment do I use? Non-professional. I shoot on a Samsung Galaxy Ultra S23 and a Panasonic DMC-ZS100. Neither of these are particularly great for the purpose, but they are both highly portable. I also use a Subaru Forester and my words. Many, many words, including some high value ones as you’ve seen.

A quick reminiscence:

My parents kindly bestowed upon me during law school a 2002 Toyota Camry, with probably 110,000 miles or so on it.

Here she is (I believe I named her “Avalon, my trusty steed”) in the Allegheny National Forest (or possibly Allegany State Park). Even today, this car is probably still a good buy. I put at least 60,000-70,000 miles on it between the Midwest and the Northeast and maybe spent $3,000 in non-standard maintenance (it had a faulty O2 sensor at one point and maybe a leaking gasket, but nothing major). This car took a beating, living in the snow and salt-covered lands of Western New York, and even doing a bit of off-roading in places like Wharton State Forest in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey.

Wild blueberries are the best.

The 2002 Camry is not luxurious–at least not in the LE trim–but it had a CD player and cassette deck, a decent four cylinder engine, and it told you the temperature outside. Our 2010 Kia did not give you the temperature–on the other hand, it did have satellite radio, and a lot of the places we took it don’t have great FM radio. Many of these cars have reached over 200,000 miles, though perhaps unwisely I let mine go around 180,000 miles or so over a radiator issue. But parking in New York City is a Sisyphean task, and not having to deal with Alternate Side Parking for a few years was blissful.

A couple more shots of Avalon in Vermont, one with my beloved first shelter pup Djemma behind the wheel on the Lake Champlain ferry to Plattsburgh, back in 2011, and the second by Sand Bar State Park in Vermont. Both highly recommended, especially in the summer (and no doubt to be discussed more in the future).