I drove out of the lot with hesitation since I am not familiar with driving on the left side of the road. In fact, I missed my exit because I was afraid of making a right turn. Eventually I followed another car and made it on the freeway going north. I pulled off the highway before a toll freeway to a gas station to practice pumping gas (as if I have never done that before) and to pay the toll on the kiosk. After I pumped gas, I moved the van around to the parking lot of a fast food restaurant. I went in to grab a sandwich and when I came back to the van, all of my bags and everything I brought with me was stolen. Just like that. Everything. Camera, clothes, etc was gone. All I had left was my wallet and iPhone and luckily I grabbed my passport from my backpack and put in my purse as a last minute, "maybe I should take this with me" thought.
I waited for police, filled a report, spent night at police station so they could fingerprint the van in the morning and then the next day... I was finally on my way, for real this time.
I really wasn't that upset. It was just "stuff." The thing I was most upset about was my hand written travel journal. I am pretty particular about clothes and can wear out an article of clothing if I like it. Of course I packed all of my favorites and swimsuits. Ladies, you know what I mean when I say a good swimsuit is hard to find. I bet the one you consider your favorite is a few years old because it fits just right.
I digress... Since I had my iPhone on me, I took all of my travel photos with it like I do when I travel the states and post on my Instagram account ( @alisontravels ). It wasn't a big deal to me to use it since it's the camera I use the most these days.
The first day on the road, I found a spot out in the country with fields of sheep (the photo shown above). I got out of the van to take their photograph but they all scattered and ran away once one of them saw me and got spooked. So I went back to the van and sat in it for a while to see if they would come back. I leaned back (hiding from the sheep in the van) and took a photo from the inside and couldn't believe how beautiful it looked. I was actually in the place where I've seen so many beautiful landscapes. I've arrived.
From that photo, I continued on and used the passenger door window as a photo frame to all of the beautiful surroundings I came across. My new visual travel journal would be images taken from the drivers seat of the van so I could remember what it was like and hoped that by doing so, it would give my friends and followers a sense of being there with me, along for the ride.
I also did this with the sliding door and displayed my toes to give it a human element.
Aline Smithson wrote a nice article for her blog, Lenscratch that you can read HERE and David Carol wrote a nice piece about the sliding door views on PDN's Emerging Photographer that you can read HERE. Thank you both for sharing this series!
I hope you feel as if you took a little tour of the country with these images. It's a beautiful country with wonderful people. I will never forget it.
