Vegas! -The Drive

I love roadtrips- no matter where you are there is always cool stuff to see, and of course, to photograph. I had a wedding in Palm Desert the day before we went to Vegas for WPPI so we stayed at the In-Law's in Rancho Mirage that night and left from there.

Instead of backtracking to the 15 and going up from there, we went South toward Coachella and headed over to the 95, which runs right next to Havasu. This route took us four hours but there was some cool sights along the way. We were in a bit of a hurry so we didn't really stop... just lots of "oo oo oo" from me as we passed cool stuff.

I was taking lots of shots with the point and shoot from the car like the one below of my trusty old truck turning 100,000 miles!! I love this truck as it was my companion on my solo drive to Alaska after finishing school back in '99. I ate, drank, slept and... (well, lets not get into all the details) in it. Notice all the extras I got, the temp. gauge, the speedometer and fuel gauge... all the luxuries. It has great AC though- that's a must!

(notice the bug splatter)

We came up to a line of cars waiting for this multi-mile train to pass- mostly huge RVs and semi's... I wasn't into trying to pass them all once we got going- so I ventured into the dirt field on the right side of the highway to see what was in the front of the line. It was so cool, like the first guy in line was saving a spot just for me. There was about three car lengths of empty road so I just rolled right up there- I love good swoops when they work out right!

Jeni drove up with me but flew home early as to not be away from the kids for more than 48 hours- so I drove home solo. I left a day early to surprise Jeni and the kids so I was in a bit of a rush on the return too. These last two were taken as I was driving with the point and shoot... major PS to make them cooler!I played around with this shot for awhile, experimenting with different layers, masks, and blending modes. Feels like Mars... sometimes it feels like you're on Mars making that drive from Vegas!