The road chose me

I’ve been to New York City a few times before and it doesn’t take long until everything feels familiar & easy. Mum & Dad’s apartment is on the upper west side, and I spend most of my time hanging around that area. I’ve done all the touristy things before like Liberty Island, the Staten Island ferry, the Empire State Building, etc so I’m not interested in that stuff. I spend most of my time hanging out with my parents, catching up and laughing while doing nothing in particular.

New York City Skyline

Highlights include:

• Going to a bar with all of Mum & Dad’s new friends in the city where Dad draws a picture on a placemat with the supplied crayons.
  “Tierra Del Fuego or bust” he calls it

Tierra Del Fuego or Bust

• Driving out to the little country town of Cold Spring on a beautiful sunny fall day. The leaves are seriously colorful here & we have a great day wandering around the quaint town.

Dan, Mum & Dad in Cold Spring

• Eating almost all of Mum & Dad’s Vegemite, an Australian spread. It’s been so long since I ate it I was unsure I would still like it. Vegemite turned out to be more delicious than I remembered.

• Catching up with my good friend Bari who I haven’t seen for too long. Hanging out with a part time bar tender makes me a part time regular for a while…

• Cooking dinner together in their tiny kitchen most nights.

Dinner with Mum, Dad & Bari

• Spending sunny afternoons in Central park walking, throwing a football & reading.

• Walking over the Brooklyn Bridge at night & playing with my camera. I’ve been trying to take some good night shots for a while now, and I’m really proud of how it turned out. Next time I find the perfect location for a photo of blurry headlights and taillights I’ll be good to go.

The bridges of New York City

The Brooklyn Bridge

I find it really hard to say goodbye when time is up. I’m going to miss my Mum & Dad a lot in the coming months, but having their full support makes it way easier for me.
I know I have to see them more often than I have been lately.

On the Hudson River

Watching the new Pixar animated movie “Up” on the flight back is a great reminder of what living your dreams is all about. I think the Jeep is pretty similar to a house floating with 3 billion balloons, and heading to South America sounds like a pretty good idea to me

-Dan

I know I’ve got a big day of driving ahead of me and so get up really early and get moving. It feels great to be up before the sun in the cool morning air as I tear down my tent, cook breakfast and move ahead. I put down a few hundred miles before I see the Las Vegas skyline appear on the horizon. The traffic on the interstate crawls to a standstill just as I exit onto Las Vegas Boulevard, better known as “The Strip”.

About ten years ago I stayed at the Luxor, at the southern end of the strip and my memory of the area is spot on. All the major hotels, attractions and elevated walkways are just as I remember them, with thousands of people eagerly getting around. My jaw falls open as I drive the northern end of the strip, a totally different place from ten years ago. I catch every red light as I make my way, allowing plenty of time to stare in awe at the enormity of it all. Buildings and super screens almost entirely cover the road and there are literally hundreds of thousands of people roaming around, at 2pm on a Monday no less. I’m so stunned by the insanity of it all I completely forget to take any photos.

I continue on Interstate 15 all the way into the suburbs of Los Angeles, where I meet up with Jen & Greg, long time family friends. They’ve had a baby boy since I last saw them, and I’m completely engrossed playing with Christopher for an entire day.

My Mum & Dad have recently moved from small town Australia to New York City, their adventurous children apparently rubbing off on them. The relative closeness now combined with not seeing them for two and a half years means a detour to see them is high on my list of things to do. I leave the Jeep with my friends and set out to fly cross-country for a ten day holiday from my life-holiday

It’s a huge day of traveling for me and I have a few experiences that stick out:

• I find for the first time in my life I’m quite apprehensive about flying. When I think about it for a while it occurs to me I’ve been completely in control of my own destination for the last four months, and I am not comfortable giving that up.
• Lunch and dinner are both served to me in plastic containers wrapped in plastic containers wrapped in … you get the idea. When I’m finished, the un-used salt, pepper, hot sauce, ketchup & napkins are all mindlessly swept into the trash. I’m dumbfounded by this needless waste and it occurs to me I have just used up more resources in two meals than I normally would in a week. I watch as the same story is repeated over and over for every person on the plane.
  I don’t know why the world works like this, and I really hope we can change sooner rather than later.
• I finish reading “Travels with Charlie” by John Steinbeck, a throughly enjoyable account of Steinbeck’s road trip around America in 1960. He does a fantastic job describing the personality of such a journey that makes me smile from ear to ear.
• I read “The Last Lecture” from start to finish in about two and a half hours and am very strongly affected by it. When Randy Pausch learnt he had terminal cancer he decided to give his last lecture, titled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”. It’s an amazing book, which I think everyone should read as soon as possible.
  You can read more of Randy’s story at www.thelastlecture.com

My eyes are drooping when I finally get to Mum & Dad’s apartment in Manhattan, which does nothing to lessen the jubilant mood we find ourselves in at 1am.
There is lots to say about New York City, until then I’ll leave you with a photo I took from the Brooklyn Bridge, with a 30 second exposure. The big bright light on the left is the moon

New York City skyline as seen from the Brooklyn Bridge

-Dan

When I made the trip out to the Arctic Ocean I happened to meet a really cool guy, Ben Huff.
Ben is a professional photographer writing a book about the Dalton Highway and the people who are compelled to travel on it. He’s been travelling up and down the highway for a few years now taking photos and documenting stories for the book. He’s driving up in the middle of summer and the middle of winter, winding up in the ditch on one occasion, which actually turned out be a good thing believe it or not.

You can checkout Ben’s amazing work at his site http://www.huffphoto.com/ and his blog is really cool as well, http://www.huffphoto.blogspot.com/ 
Maybe one day I’ll be taking photos of that quality

Ben took a couple of photos of me with his super-cool camera – he likes to use real film as it gives a kind of life to photos that digital deos not.
Have a look at the two photos of me and I think you’ll agree.

Dan at the Arctic Ocean

Dan pondering life at the Arctic Ocean

-Dan

My time in Alaska is coming to an end and I thought I would sum up these last few days with some choice photos.

I’d just arrived back from kayaking and was wandering the main street of Valdez when Thomas and Roland drove up. Neither of us had any idea we were going to be there and it was fantastic to see friends again. We ended up hanging out for three days, laughing at planning new adventures the whole time.

Bridal Viel Falls HDR

We chatted to some locals who were cleaning their Halibut down on the pier and one of them gave us a huge slab of the fish he was cleaning. He was just about to throw it out, so didn’t mind giving it to us. Thomas and I were over the moon as we cut it into enormous chunks and cooked it up with plenty of lemon juice and butter. Too add to that, my kayaking guide Jay left me a 12 pack of my favorite beer in the jeep and a note wishing me safe travels.
As Thomas pointed out, I don’t need a million dollars, just a couple of good friends and good times.

Thomas Dan & Roland in Valdez

We went for a hike up behind Valdez and had an awesome view when the morning clouds burnt off:

The view of Valdez when the morning cloud lifted

I’ve been trying to get photos of the wildflowers for a while now – they are everywhere:

Alaskan wildflowers are everywhere

On our way out of Valdez we went for a hike up Worthington glacier all the way up to the dome visible above my head in this photo:

Dan and Worthington glacier

A few weeks back I adjusted quickly to the very long days and even the endless days. Now that I’m moving south, twilight begins at about midnight and a headlamp is almost needed from 2am until about 3.30am – I’m really struggling to get used to this and I much prefer the endless sunshine

Hiking Worthington glacier

-Dan