Drive-By Photography by Under the Sea
July 16th, 2007 2:35 PMLA to Newport
Newport to San Diego
San Diego to Las Vegas
Las Vegas to Death Valley and Grand Canyon
Grand Canyon to Williams
Williams to Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City to my soon hopefully new hometown San Francisco!
Along with many other random middle of the nowhere stops in real american motels!
This is even more epic to me cuz well I started in England and left to escape Christmas! But hundreds of photos were taken from that car at multiple speeds cuz man America is big and I kept trying to capture it on the way but the pictures just didnt seem to do it justice! Here is a small selection...
What couldnt be documented but tales that did happen are;
Me driving the car...for about 30 minutes and then no I didnt like it! Cruise control?! Long boring straight roads surrounded by wilderness? LEFT HAND DRIVE?! Not for me!
Tumbleweed!! I saw real tumbleweed!!
Deciding to take a scenic route in the middle of winter when it gets dark around 6ish and we set off about 4 and well so much for our scenic route all we could see was darkness...then we got lost up a moutain. It was cold!
Getting a parking ticket in San Diego that we couldnt get out of just cuz we didnt understand the rules of the road. Apparently the alternate sides of the roads get cleaned every other day or something like that!
Thinking our next stop was 2 hours away and stopping for Taco Bell to be informed by the helpful lady that it was in fact 6 hours away and how typically English we were for thinking anything could just be 2 hours away. She gave us a much needed map, god bless her although she was wrong and it was in fact only 3 hours away.
Driving down a one way street in the wrong direction in SLC with traffic coming at us as the lights conviently changed green...it was the speediest 3 point turn I have ever encounted! Thank god I wasnt driving...although I blantely wouldnt have made the mistake in the first place.
Driving across the Nevada desert where only prisions exist and hitchhiking is breifly illegal.
Driving into a random place called Sparks....it was surreal! and tackier than Vegas!
Driving down Lombard street which my friend claimed wasnt that windy...until he took the first corner when his exact words were "ok this is actually quite tight"
And lots more! So everybody should take a long long drive in their friends car!
My friend!
Driving in LA is scary when you are from the country in a small country!
Im in Hollywood!
What is with the allowed to turn right on a red light?! so so confusing!
Beautiful beach somewhere on that famous beach route!
I am falling in love with California!
fast moving sunset
Lovely but where the hell am i?!
More moutains!
Driving away from odd motel!
We got lost trying to find Big Bear Lake...we thought it had a cool name but without a proper map we struggled so ended up in this motel somewhere on the way to Vegas...the man was odd but he cared for his motel quite alot giving extra trims such as fake flowers and funny room scent!
Still on the road
We're going the right way!
I tried to take a pic of the whole sign but it appears we were going to fast, or I was too slow and you dont get a second chance in a moving vechile!
We lost the freeway!
A small fully intended detour...honest!
Here it is!
Man the roads in America are long...and never ending...and quite sparsely populated!
Safety first
This is a buckle, you must wear it at all times.
er more views of er moutains?!
Are we nearly there yet?
No we are not.
The scenery doesnt change much!
Vegas!
We made it! It rises out of the desert like a heaven but not quite as sudden as the shopping mall a few hours before hand that was packed with people where I have no idea where they came from!
out of the car
I had to get out...I had to win!!
Back on the road
Have we been here before? Im not sure its all starting to look the same and neverending!
Area 51
This is why there are no people or cars!
Our car!
I think this must be where they shoot those car adverts where only one car seems to exist and thats the beautiful car they want you to have!
Change of weather!
And then we got snowed in!
Ended up having to stay in Williams for a while cuz well it was rather snowy!
Back on the road!
Car views!
Why are these people living in the middle of nowhere please?!
A regular stop for petr...GAS!
We made it!
Who needs a car when you have a trolley bus?!
Or a bike...made for two!
Rock on SanFran!
Please can I come back?!
6 vote(s)
Terms
(none yet)3 comment(s)
Brava. you did win! The life lottery.
Palm trees, surf, sand, sunset, mountains, desert, expansive roads, snow, and magical and barren city scapes. What more could you desire? Even tumbleweeds. (Wait til you see your first road runner! Cor - they are cool)
----
I love a public road: few sights there are
That please me more—such object has had power
O’er my imagination since the dawn
Of childhood, when its disappearing line
Seen daily afar off, on one bare steep
Beyond the limits which my feet had trod,
Was like a guide into eternity,
At least to things unknown and without bound.
---And so some wisdom from a fellow Englishman….Wordsworth (I know, he was writing about walking but boy did he relish an unfamiliar landscape)
Wow, and I thought my daytrip to land's end was a long drive!