7 1/2 Weeks on the Road...

 

Also in this issue:

• The usual announcements
• RX1R III size compared to my previous street cameras
• 7.5 Weeks on the Road

The Usual Announcements

* I've been getting a lot of requests for a book on the RX1R III, which I've already started working on.  You can pre-order the downloadable versions here at a discount!  (And see some size comparisons at the bottom of this blog post against cameras with which I used to do street photography.)

* There are only three spots left for the Kenya Photo Safari - Nov. 10 - 17, 2025.  Bring your 600mm lens, get yourself to Nairobi, and we'll take care of you start to finish!  Send me an email if you have any questions - and you can learn more at FriedmanArchives.com/safari   This will probably be the last year we'll be doing this.

* Even though the pandemic is over, I'm still being asked to do zoom talks for photo clubs.  And the most popular topic being asked about?  Computational photography.  (By far!)  It's a topic few other photo lectures tackle, and it opens the minds of all who are in attendence.  I can do the same for your photo club as well!  Contact me (Gary at Friedman Archives dot com) for details.

7.5 Weeks on the Road

So we just came back from another road trip - one of the grandkids in California was graduating from middle school and we wanted to be there.  What made this trip different is that we had no set schedule or path or time frame - we could actually take our time and enjoy ourselves (unlike on previous RV trips).  On an ideal day we can drive 4 hours and then work 4 hours.

So here's a brief travelogue.  As with previous travelogues, there's nothing award-winning in here.  Just some interesting snapshots (with good light) which shares a fraction of our adventures, told through the timeless medium of captions.  As always, click on any image to view larger and sharper.

Need a front porch for yourhootenanny? Now anyone can have one!  (Meadows of Dan, Virginia)

Natural Bridge State Park in Virginia

Pharmacist Caleb Bradham invented Pepsi Cola in his drugstore in New Bern, North Carolina..

Oh deer!  Nashville, Tennessee.

Visited Elvis Presley's home "Graceland" in Memphis, TN..  

Turns out Elvis had a purple cadillac that matched Carol's hair. :-)

Yeah, I remember the '70's...

Beale Street in Memphis.  Would have been a more compelling shot if I had waited until the blue hour.  (Like in the Bourbon street shots later on.)

Carol relaxing in the motorhome.  The map on the wall shows the places we visited since buying it as an escape vehicle during Covid.

Headed to Laurel, Mississippi, where they filmed the "Home Town" reality show on HGTV cable channel.

We didn't see the stars Ben and Erin, but we did get our picture taken next to cardboard cutouts of them.

Bourbon Street in New Orleans.  Nice light but we wen't impressed with the place.  Just a bunch of young, drunk stupid people.  (Video below.)

Many more Bourbon Street photos can be seen here.  

Hellfighters Motorcycle Shop in Laurel.  If I wanted a custom motorcycle, this is definitely where I'd come!

Landrum's Homestead and Village is a historic museum started by a grandfather who wanted to show his grandchildren what life was like back in "his day".  

For us the highlight of Landrum's wasn't the museum but this most friendly stray cat who made the homestead his home and personally greets all of the visitors.  

We've wanted a cat like this since ours died last year, but the folks who run the place wouldn't let us adopt him.  (Just as well... the cat will have a more interesting life here.)

In Hattiesburg, Mississippi, the "Pocket Museum" is a cool little alley with very cool little things.  The closer you look, the more you find.

More here.

Plantation home.  I don't remember the details. 

Galviston, Texas.

The history of Galveston centers around major floods.  So if you want a house to survive, it has to be built on stilts.

Local architecture reflects this iconic feature.

A tornado happened in Lubbuck, Texas.  It touched down about 5 miles from where we hunkered down for the night.

Here's a quick video of the tornado take from the door of the RV:

Texas-sized windmill blades.  In Texas.

Taken while driving. :-)

We finally visited our first "Meow Wolf" immersive art installation in Santa Fe, NM.  There are a handful of these around the country, all different.  

More of my images can be seen here.

Bearizona (get it?) wildlife park is a drive-through zoo where you can have close encounters with bears, wolves, bison, and others.  

Make sure you roll up your windows in the bear section.

In Kingman, AZ we had our first blowout.  It took out both tires on the left side.

It also ruptured a brake line near the wheel well.  We had to wait a day in 99 degree heat to wait for the new part to arrive.

Did I mention it was 99 degree heat?

Two days later, the opposite pair of tires failed.  This time it was in Indio, CA where it was 110 degrees.  We learned a few things from this.  1) Motor home tires last only about 5 years.  2) It's not a great idea to travel in 100 degree heat with five-year-old tires.  3) When one motor home tire fails, it's wisest to replace all of the tires at once.  (We ended up replacing all six.)

Sunset at Balboa Island in Southern California

We were there during a "No Kings" protest against Trump.  The photojournalist in me felt compelled to cover it.  The Trump supporters outnumbered the self-proclaimed anti-fascists.   

A partial ranbow somewhere between Gallup New Mexico and Amarillo Texas.

Road reading.  Freeman Dyson was the famous physicist who worked alongside Richard Feynman and Robert Oppenheimer (among many, many others) in the Manhattan Project.  He was a visiting scientist at JPL when I worked there, and his office was literally down the hall from mine.  I knocked on his door and had a nice chat with him, although for the life of me I can't recall what it was we talked about.  Oh how I wish I had read his books before I met him back in the 1990's!

All of this driving gives one lots of time to ponder.  For example, is this how GI Joe got his Kung Fu grip?

I finally figured out how it could have been uphill both ways.

Once self-driving car / truck technology becomes mature, I want it included in my next motorhome.  Just go to sleep and wake up at your next destination.  Protect the sleeping passenger with a reinforced "coffin" to protect against the worst case (or to save burial costs - whichever).
(Concept art courtesy generative AI.  Prompt: "draw me a "cut away" picture of a future self-driving van, where the passenger can lay down in a bed centered in the vehicle in a crash-resistent 'coffin'.")

While on the road I also was able to articulate the secret to dissecting any religious argument.

The only interesting picture I got in Oklahoma City.

Little Rock, Arkensas

Where I come from, a picoburger is a burger x 10^(-12).  

No caption needed here. :-)

The Petrified Forest

Oh, wait... that other picture was of the Petrified Forest back in 2001.  THIS is how it looked during our trip, complete with bad light.

Orsen Welles sat here.

Walking the dogs with my younger brother in Nashville.

I literally stumbled onto three Star Trek artifacts on this trip.  More details about these appear in this unannounced blog post.

Somewhere in the Turning Stone Casino on the Native American Oneida tribe lands in Upstate New York.

Home!  Where gasoline costs $2.89/gallon.  We sold the RV shortly thereafter.

There are more pictures, but I don't want to bore you. :-)

Then the RX1R III arrived, and I started taking pictures of the camera alongside prior cameras I had used for street photography for Chapter 1 of the book:

A6700 with APS-C sensor

Ricoh 35 rangefinder

Contax T3

Not exactly the best tool for the job.

Until next time,

Yours Truly, Gary Friedman

Home of the densist blogs on the planet. (tm) 

P.S. - Just received this picture from the couple that bought the RV.  I'm so glad it went to a good home!