www.dennismook.com
I thought I would provide a sort of wrap up of the trip. I thought it may be helpful to those of you who are photographers to learn what equipment I used, didn't use as well as expenses for travel. Also, I thought a few words about what worked overall with the trip, what didn't work so well could also be beneficial.
First, some overall statistics. Since my travel partner lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan and I live in Newport News, Virginia, we had to get to one place or the other so we could travel together. We wanted to travel "coast to coast" so Vance flew here and after I picked him up at the airport, we drove the short distance to the oceanfront in Virginia Beach to touch the Atlantic Ocean. We thought it would be cool for us to go from Atlantic to Pacific, not just on Route 66 only.
We spent the night at my home then left early the next morning for his in Ann Arbor. The plan then was for me to leave my vehicle at his home while we traveled, return to his home after the trip, then I would drive back to Newport News with a stop in my hometown in western PA on the way back. And that is what we did.
In total, considering both vehicles, we drove 7712 miles and traveled in 19 states. We drove Vance's vehicle 6111 miles and mine 1591. That is more than I anticipated but my Honda Odyssey and his Subaru Outback were both great travel vehicles. Seats were supportive and comfortable and I had no lower back pain at all during all those many hours in the cars. We didn't listen to the radio at all. We did listen to some comedic podcasts, but mostly we talked.
Travel Tip: If you are going to travel with others, as you plan come to an agreement on all expenses. We did that very thing for this trip and it worked out splendidly! No arguments, no hard feelings and everyone is satisfied with the outcome.
We split gas for the duration of the trip. Since I was driving back to Virginia from Michigan, my share was a bit more, but that is okay, that was our agreement. Vance spent $392.39 and I spent $472.10. That is a total fuel cost of $864.49. I don't think that is too bad for 7712 miles.
The highest gasoline price we saw was in Needles, CA for $3.85 per gallon and the lowers we saw was outside Nashville, TN for $3.14 per gallon.
We also agreed to split the hotel costs. Vance paid $1182.63 and I paid $1310.65. Again, I was making a stop on the way back home so the difference is a hotel room for me along my route home.
I would say, on average (there were a couple of exceptions due to our location) that we found very nice accommodations, with free breakfast for an average of about $107.00 per night. Then you must add taxes and fees onto that. We stayed mainly in Hampton Inns & Suites, Holiday Inns Select and Comfort Inns & Suites. The majority of our stays were in Hamptons. You can very easily go less expensive, but these are the lodging that are comfortable for us.
We each had food and miscellaneous expenses. Those will vary by how well you decide to eat, whether or not you take advantage of hotels with free breakfast and how much you wish to spend on souvenirs and how much you decide to spend on tours, admission tickets, etc. for places you might visit.
I packed two weeks worth of clothes in a very large suitcase, brought a brief case with a laptop and lots of chargers and cords and also brought a camera bag. Our plan was to wash clothes along our route as we depleted our clean clothes. Many years ago, I had learned to roll my clothes to minimize wrinkles. I did that in this case. That worked fine, except the clothes never had a chance to hang out and lose some of the wrinkles that were there. Next time, I think I would hang my pull over collared shirts on a bar in the car instead of keeping them rolled for three weeks. That would also allow me to bring a smaller suitcase or combine my laptop and cords into the my main suitcase.
All in all, we became quite efficient in getting our stuff out of the car each evening and up to the hotel room. We also became quite efficient in getting our stuff packed back into the car in the morning. That was never an issue.
As far as photography, I had previously posted what equipment I would take. There were no breakdowns, failures or losses in the equipment so no backup was needed. That being said, I made 1895 images. Of those, 1183 were made with my D800E with either the 28-300mm F/3.5-5.6 VR lens or the 16-35mm F/4 VR lens. Most were made with the former. Additionally, I made 712 images with the Olympus OMD E-M5 and the 28-90mm (equivalent) F/3.5-5.6 lens. That is about 66% more made with the full frame digital camera.
I think my lens choice was perfect. I was able to cover everything with the focal lengths I brought. I did not use my tripod. I did use my monopod. I found the same to be true on my 13 day Alaska trip a few years ago. Should I have used my tripod more? Not really for this trip. If my primary objective was photography, then surely, I would have broken out the tripod and set it up frequently. As it was, with image stabilization in both cameras, I didn't feel I was making images where I needed it. That includes some 5-exposure HDR sequences and a couple of panoramic sequences. I had plenty of memory cards, camera and lens cleaning equipment as well as the required filters. Also, I had 2 batteries for the D800E and three for the Olympus. That was more than adequate.
Photo Tip: I found it advantageous to clean my cameras and lenses regularly. We spend a significant amount of time in the desert southwest where we found it windy and dusty. I had two lens cloths, a blower, brush and Lens Pen. I used all of them frequently.
I fell in love with that little Olympus! I think if I had to do it I would take only the Olympus. The camera system is small, lightweight and has plenty of resolution as well as superior image quality for almost every use. Sixteen megapixels is plenty for all but highly professional use. I found myself picking up the Olympus any time I wanted to make an image that was not specifically make for possible stock sale. I'll know more once I go through each of my images in Lightroom.
Speaking of Lightroom, I took my small, 12" laptop and two small, USB powered 500gb hard drives. I used one external drive as my main Lightroom catalog drive and the other drive as a backup. I then copied the images to the computer's hard drive. Therefore, I had three copies of each photo. I kept one of the hard drives separate from the other so fire, theft, loss, etc. would not affect both of them. I didn't delete my images on my memory cards but felt I could as I had three copies of each image. Also, I recorded the images in both RAW and JPEG as I wanted to post JPEGS quickly to this blog or send them out as attachments to emails. I tried processing the 36mp RAW files but, with that small, underpowered laptop, it was excruciatingly slow. Working with small sized JPEGS was perfect.
What worked? Touring the country in a high quality vehicle with a friend with whom you are totally compatible. Staying in moderate hotels and eating moderately--and locally as much as possible. We tried to avoid the chain restaurants. Deciding each night what the agenda for the next day will be. Setting out to engage strangers in conversation in order to meet local people around the country. Everyone we met was just delightful. Taking time to make photographs but not allowing photography to be the primary purpose of the trip.
What didn't work? For me, it was less than optimum to roll my shirts for two weeks. I would hang them in the car. Also, my underpowered 12" laptop was a huge source of frustration. I will be buying a more powerful one with a larger screen. Other than that, everything went better than we could expect!
I can highly recommend taking a road trip to see this wonderful country of ours. The land is magnificent, the people are delightful and the memories you will make will last a lifetime.
Enjoy!
Thanks for looking.
Dennis Mook
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