I love driving, especally long distance driving, but never before had I undertaken a twelve hour marathon drive to bring me from my home town of Milton Ontario to Johnson City Tennessee. I had my route mapped out, gas stations and rest areas noted. GPS loaded and ready, an iPhone filled with episodes of the FPP, and a cd wallet filled with all my State of Trance CDs from Armin VanBurren. (my Zune had deceded to kick the bucket a few days prior) and of course most important, my trusty F3 loaded with the only film I knew that would take a 12 hour drive with all different types of lighting…Kodak Portra 400.
Of course I didn’t get to start taking photos until the sun started peeking out from over the horizon, and by that point I had already been on the road for just over three hours. I saw the sunrise along I-79 just south of Erie, PA the New York leg of the trip behind me.
By golden hour, I was in the moutains, fog obsuring my view a few times as the morning mists lifted.
It was going to be a great day…a long day, but a great one. I cranked up the music, rolled down the windows, donned my sunglasses and set the cruise control to 70. My first major stop was in Morgantown West Virginia, just south of the state line. After killing some time wandering around a Dick’s Sporting Goods (I was looking at inflatable boats for a later adventure) and a Best Buy because it was there and I needed more walking time. I headed to a post office to mail off a package to Dan Domme (returning his EOS A2) and Michael Raso (A Polaroid Spectra for the FPP). While hunting down the post office, I happened across the ghost town of Scotts Run, complete this an abandoned mine. I would have taken a closer look but there was a hobo cooking his breakfast on an open fire just outside.
I moved deeper into the moutains as the interstates moved faster and had a much more winding path, this was a fun way to drive, unlike my trips through Ohio which are straight, and flat.
Cloud cover grew as I hit US-19, I was hoping that it wasn’t going to start raining, I had been doing so well weatherwise.
Thick fog rolled in as did rain clouds as I hit the first of two moutain tunnels.
Rain hit through Virginia, making photography difficult with the wiper blades obsuring the photos. So I set the camera aside until I hit Bristol, this neat little town and birthplace of courtry music sitting astride the VA/TN border. Taking advantage of the break in the rain I exhausted the roll in the downtown.
Of course I was down to my last few shots and the skies once again opened up complete with thunder and lighting, and as crazy as I am, I was not going to be outside in the tempast and beat a hasty retreat to my car and hit the road for the last leg of the trip to Johnson City.
Nikon F3 – AI-S Nikkor 50mm 1:1.4 – Kodak Portra 400
