Sorry I have been away for so long. I'm becoming integrated into the real world, and it turns out to be more time-consuming than my summer activities.
The panorama photographs are complete! Click here to access them.
WARNING: Links to these and all other photos will be no good around noon EDT 10/19/11 (tomorrow).
If you would like information on purchasing panoramas or any other photos of mine, please leave your email address in the comments section (hint: use "[at]" instead of "@" to avoid spam). If you know of another manner to get in touch with me, that is preferred.
Finally, it turns out I enjoyed the photographing I did this summer, and I have continued since I have been home (although I have been unable to find any mountains). I will be compiling the best photos of my summer, along with ongoing projects I create, and selling them as a side job/hobby. A crude online store (likely via Etsy.com) should be available by the end of the year, while a more professional and individual website should be ready to go within 12-18 months.
Based on the title of this blog, it seems silly for me to continue posting much longer. I still plan to provide compiled lists of the summer. But for those of you interested in following my photography, I will be creating a separate blog for such, with plans to integrate it into the website when up and running.
Happy Viewing!
10.18.2011
10.04.2011
A Last Look at Photos
At some point in November, the links I've provided for my photos will no longer be valid. Before then, I wanted to bring all the links together for those who have not been following since the beginning.
Before I left on the trip, I received a DSLR camera as a graduation present. Keep that in mind if you go through these in order. I noticed myself getting better, I wonder if you will too. Certainly there were points where I just got lucky.
Printing These Photos
In an attempt to help you better enjoy these photos, I have not watermarked them. But I do ask you not to print any of these. Use them for desktop backgrounds if you please, but do not print them. I'd be happy to print almost any one of these photos for you, depending on the size - just let me know.
Here they are:
Panorama Photographs
If you've been following, I'm sure you're wondering where these are - I've promised them more than once. I'm working on putting these together in the evenings. I'm expecting to complete them (there are quite a few of these collectively) at some point next week. There will be a post dedicated to these alone.
Before I left on the trip, I received a DSLR camera as a graduation present. Keep that in mind if you go through these in order. I noticed myself getting better, I wonder if you will too. Certainly there were points where I just got lucky.
Printing These Photos
In an attempt to help you better enjoy these photos, I have not watermarked them. But I do ask you not to print any of these. Use them for desktop backgrounds if you please, but do not print them. I'd be happy to print almost any one of these photos for you, depending on the size - just let me know.
Here they are:
- Yellowstone National Park, Round 1
- Mount Rushmore
- Badlands National Park
- Glacier National Park, Round 1
- North Cascades National Park
- Mount Rainier National Park
- Olympic National Park
- Crater Lake National Park
- Redwood National Park
- Lassen Volcanic National Park
- Great Basin National Park (and US-50)
- Lake Tahoe
- Arches National Park, Round 1
- Michigan (begins Leg 2)
- North Dakota
- Montana, Round 2
- Wyoming, Round 2
- Colorado
- Utah, Round 2
- Arizona, Round 1
- California, Round 2
- Arizona, Round 2
- New Mexico & Texas
- Arkansas
- Mississippi, Alabama & Tennessee
- Kentucky
- Cuyahoga Valley National Park
- Acadia National Park
- Shenandoah National Park
- Blue Ridge Parkway & Great Smoky Mountains National Park
- Congaree National Park
Panorama Photographs
If you've been following, I'm sure you're wondering where these are - I've promised them more than once. I'm working on putting these together in the evenings. I'm expecting to complete them (there are quite a few of these collectively) at some point next week. There will be a post dedicated to these alone.
Statistics
Here are some statistics I thought you might find interesting:
- Miles Driven: 24,500 (7,000 in Leg 1; 17,500 in Leg 2)
- Fuel Economy: 33.6 mpg in Leg 1; 34.5 mpg in Leg 2
- States Visited: 48
- National Parks Visited: 39 (does not include Wind Cave NP, which I visited two years prior)
- Nights in the Car (by choice): 3
- Nights in the Car (by necessity): 1
- White-Tailed Deer
- Mule Deer
- Elk
- Moose (3)
- Black Bears
- Grizzly Bears
- Roadrunners
- Other Birds I don't care enough about to distinguish
- Snakes (still not sure what kind)
- Wild Pig
- Wild Horses
- Buffalo
- Pronghorn
- Big Horn
- Mountain Goats
- Javelina (Google this one)
9.29.2011
Thank You
Before I get into post-trip posts, I wanted to issue a handful of well-deserved thank yous.
First, thank you to all of you who have followed (and may continue to follow) at any point throughout the summer. I hope I have provided you with a little entertainment from time-to-time and perhaps even a chance to live vicariously through my stories and photos. While I have kept a handwritten journal throughout the trip, I've certainly written about stories which I forgot to include in my journal. Thus, by maintaining this blog, I've essentially created a second journal for myself.
Second, and more importantly, thank you to those of you have contributed to me being able to take this incredible trip. No one deserves more thanks than my parents. Without helping me fund my college career, I would have never had the money to do this. In most life scenarios, my parents play the role of bringing my fantastical ideas down to reality; but in this trip, they maintained a positive attitude and made me think I could actually do this trip (if I went about planning it intelligently). And after two years of planning and saving, I think I did a pretty good job.
My girlfriend sat through two years of me planning what my trip would be. From wanting to go to Europe to seeing the United States, from wanting to travel together to wanting to do the whole thing alone to combining the two into a comfortable compromise. And for being near the phone when I felt lonely and for taking care of the things I could not by not being in Cincinnati, she rocks! Plus, she had to deal with the lack of my magical presence, which can't be easy for anyone.
My employer went against its culture and enabled me the time off and a spot when I came back.
Several people gave graduation presents. And while I had saved what I needed for the trip, these gifts provided a financial backdrop, i.e., I wasn't going to come back broke!
Several others provided me with encouragement. The most spoken phrase to me throughout my last two years of school was, "You definitely have to take this trip while you can." It was this encouragement that I believe really made me think I could do it. Then, after the trip was planned people would ask me, "Who are you going with?" I'd answer, "No one, for the majority of the trip." Most would return with, "Wow! I couldn't do that." This gave me even more incentive to go - to prove I could be on my own for that long.
Finally, for those who joined me. Specifically, my two buddies in Leg 1, my parents and girlfriend (at different times) in Leg 2 and the friends who put me up and put up with me for a night or two in Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Blacksburg, Jacksonville and Atlanta. All, and I mean all, of these people took away the potential for loneliness with their company and also lessened the financial burden in one way or another.
And for anyone else I missed who thinks you may have contributed to this trip, you probably did. Thank you.
No, it wasn't what I had planned, but truthfully, it couldn't have been better.
First, thank you to all of you who have followed (and may continue to follow) at any point throughout the summer. I hope I have provided you with a little entertainment from time-to-time and perhaps even a chance to live vicariously through my stories and photos. While I have kept a handwritten journal throughout the trip, I've certainly written about stories which I forgot to include in my journal. Thus, by maintaining this blog, I've essentially created a second journal for myself.
Second, and more importantly, thank you to those of you have contributed to me being able to take this incredible trip. No one deserves more thanks than my parents. Without helping me fund my college career, I would have never had the money to do this. In most life scenarios, my parents play the role of bringing my fantastical ideas down to reality; but in this trip, they maintained a positive attitude and made me think I could actually do this trip (if I went about planning it intelligently). And after two years of planning and saving, I think I did a pretty good job.
My girlfriend sat through two years of me planning what my trip would be. From wanting to go to Europe to seeing the United States, from wanting to travel together to wanting to do the whole thing alone to combining the two into a comfortable compromise. And for being near the phone when I felt lonely and for taking care of the things I could not by not being in Cincinnati, she rocks! Plus, she had to deal with the lack of my magical presence, which can't be easy for anyone.
My employer went against its culture and enabled me the time off and a spot when I came back.
Several people gave graduation presents. And while I had saved what I needed for the trip, these gifts provided a financial backdrop, i.e., I wasn't going to come back broke!
Several others provided me with encouragement. The most spoken phrase to me throughout my last two years of school was, "You definitely have to take this trip while you can." It was this encouragement that I believe really made me think I could do it. Then, after the trip was planned people would ask me, "Who are you going with?" I'd answer, "No one, for the majority of the trip." Most would return with, "Wow! I couldn't do that." This gave me even more incentive to go - to prove I could be on my own for that long.
Finally, for those who joined me. Specifically, my two buddies in Leg 1, my parents and girlfriend (at different times) in Leg 2 and the friends who put me up and put up with me for a night or two in Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Blacksburg, Jacksonville and Atlanta. All, and I mean all, of these people took away the potential for loneliness with their company and also lessened the financial burden in one way or another.
And for anyone else I missed who thinks you may have contributed to this trip, you probably did. Thank you.
No, it wasn't what I had planned, but truthfully, it couldn't have been better.
Congaree National Park
Have you visited South Carolina before? If you have, you were probably headed to one of the many destination points long the coast, and you may not have realized you weren't all that far from a national park.
Congaree National Park is located just south of Columbia. I wonder how many people in Columbia don't know of its existence.
It is beautiful, while it has a slightly odd setup. It is a small park. Consider the numbers I presented in the last post. The smallest of those parks, Rocky Mountain, has an area of roughly 260,000 acres. Decrease that tenfold to 26,000 acres and you have the size of Congaree.
With that stated, size is not proportional to beauty (insert Michael Scott joke here). Congaree preserves the largest area of old-growth, bottomland, hardwood forest in the United States. That may sound like a lot of specifications, like he's the only pitcher to strikeout three batters in one inning on his mother's 50th birthday, who has a black lab and three goldfish as pets. The truth is it's not that obscure. This forest used to stretch from Northern Virginia to East Texas, or roughly 24 million acres. Remember my rant about not being forward-thinking in the east? Case closed.
Congaree also contains the highest temperate canopies (deciduous inferred) in the world (although some South American forests come close or exceed this forest in certain places).
Congaree is not only a free-entrance park with free camping and the legal collecting of firewood, but it contains virtually no roads within the park.
Day 65
After an early start in GSMNP, I made good time getting to Congaree. I visited the visitor center to obtain my free camping permit and headed out for a hike. Behind the visitor center is a 2.5-mile boardwalk trail through the forest. Walking through the forest, I really didn't feel as though I was in the eastern United States. Although extremely small, it really felt like it was some exotic land not named South Carolina.
Day 66
The next morning I got ready early for a big hike - sadly, my last of the trip.
I began with a section of the boardwalk trail. From this photo you can see the water line on the trees. Here's a tricky-but-cool statistic: 80% of the park floods, on average, 10 times every year. Yet, I don't believe it is technically a rain forest. But the humidity is no less apparent than in Olympic. One woman called the water lines tide lines; I wanted to pat her on the head and say, "Good try, but I don't think the ocean makes it all the way to Central South Carolina."
The park was not very crowded, which was very nice for being my last day in a park. However, because of this, for many of the trails I hiked, I was the first line of defense against last night's cobwebs. Being tangled up in cobwebs is not a great feeling, especially when the spiders look like this. What was amazing is I don't think I was bitten once.
I sat and had lunch on a bridge with this view.
I was also excited to see some new wildlife. Other than a deer, I saw a wild pig, but he was running away so fast, I wasn't able to get a photo of him. Later, I thought I saw a good photo opportunity along a creek, so I stepped off trail to look. It didn't end up being a good a photo, but when I stepped back on the trail, I saw two snakes which appeared to be fighting? Like the bears, I took about a million photos, and a few of them turned out okay.
At one point, they both stopped and had their heads pointed my way. I figured I was a bit too close and went back to pack up the camera. When I turned, I knew one was in the grass next to the trail, but I really could not see it. I began wondering how many times I missed cool wildlife that was blended into the background. And maybe not just animals which blend into the background, but even ones I just missed. For example, at Grand Canyon NP, I followed a giant elk through the woods. He eventually came out onto the road and disappeared into the woods on the other side of the road. The cars which passed immediately following would have had no idea what they missed. Or, if you remember the grizzly bear I saw in Yellowstone, I was only about one minute from missing him entirely.
Congaree National Park Album
This concluded my national park tour.
On Day 67, I visited a high school friend in Jacksonville, Florida. It was great catching up and playing guitar with someone other than my invisible friend. The day following I spent briefly in Atlanta catching up with more friends.
Day 69 was my trip back to Cincinnati and the bittersweet ending to an unbeatable summer.
Like I've mentioned before, the remaining posts will consist of reflections and lists throughout the month of October.
Congaree National Park is located just south of Columbia. I wonder how many people in Columbia don't know of its existence.
It is beautiful, while it has a slightly odd setup. It is a small park. Consider the numbers I presented in the last post. The smallest of those parks, Rocky Mountain, has an area of roughly 260,000 acres. Decrease that tenfold to 26,000 acres and you have the size of Congaree.With that stated, size is not proportional to beauty (insert Michael Scott joke here). Congaree preserves the largest area of old-growth, bottomland, hardwood forest in the United States. That may sound like a lot of specifications, like he's the only pitcher to strikeout three batters in one inning on his mother's 50th birthday, who has a black lab and three goldfish as pets. The truth is it's not that obscure. This forest used to stretch from Northern Virginia to East Texas, or roughly 24 million acres. Remember my rant about not being forward-thinking in the east? Case closed.
Congaree also contains the highest temperate canopies (deciduous inferred) in the world (although some South American forests come close or exceed this forest in certain places).Congaree is not only a free-entrance park with free camping and the legal collecting of firewood, but it contains virtually no roads within the park.
Day 65
After an early start in GSMNP, I made good time getting to Congaree. I visited the visitor center to obtain my free camping permit and headed out for a hike. Behind the visitor center is a 2.5-mile boardwalk trail through the forest. Walking through the forest, I really didn't feel as though I was in the eastern United States. Although extremely small, it really felt like it was some exotic land not named South Carolina.
Day 66
The next morning I got ready early for a big hike - sadly, my last of the trip.
I began with a section of the boardwalk trail. From this photo you can see the water line on the trees. Here's a tricky-but-cool statistic: 80% of the park floods, on average, 10 times every year. Yet, I don't believe it is technically a rain forest. But the humidity is no less apparent than in Olympic. One woman called the water lines tide lines; I wanted to pat her on the head and say, "Good try, but I don't think the ocean makes it all the way to Central South Carolina."
The park was not very crowded, which was very nice for being my last day in a park. However, because of this, for many of the trails I hiked, I was the first line of defense against last night's cobwebs. Being tangled up in cobwebs is not a great feeling, especially when the spiders look like this. What was amazing is I don't think I was bitten once.
I sat and had lunch on a bridge with this view.
I was also excited to see some new wildlife. Other than a deer, I saw a wild pig, but he was running away so fast, I wasn't able to get a photo of him. Later, I thought I saw a good photo opportunity along a creek, so I stepped off trail to look. It didn't end up being a good a photo, but when I stepped back on the trail, I saw two snakes which appeared to be fighting? Like the bears, I took about a million photos, and a few of them turned out okay.At one point, they both stopped and had their heads pointed my way. I figured I was a bit too close and went back to pack up the camera. When I turned, I knew one was in the grass next to the trail, but I really could not see it. I began wondering how many times I missed cool wildlife that was blended into the background. And maybe not just animals which blend into the background, but even ones I just missed. For example, at Grand Canyon NP, I followed a giant elk through the woods. He eventually came out onto the road and disappeared into the woods on the other side of the road. The cars which passed immediately following would have had no idea what they missed. Or, if you remember the grizzly bear I saw in Yellowstone, I was only about one minute from missing him entirely.
Congaree National Park Album
This concluded my national park tour.
On Day 67, I visited a high school friend in Jacksonville, Florida. It was great catching up and playing guitar with someone other than my invisible friend. The day following I spent briefly in Atlanta catching up with more friends.
Day 69 was my trip back to Cincinnati and the bittersweet ending to an unbeatable summer.
Like I've mentioned before, the remaining posts will consist of reflections and lists throughout the month of October.
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