|
|
|
|
 State
of the Tank (cont.) |
|
| Due to my daughter’s Spring Break from school, this was the month of our annual spring excursion to Los Angeles. Now, those of you who know me also know that I hate going to Los Angeles. I DO love photographing the surrounding environs however so I’m usually as eager as everyone else to make the trip. This year was a bit different. First of all, March is not nearly as photogenic as April. It isn’t bad, but April is better, trust me. The real problem however is that I usually drive. Yep, all 3000+ plus miles each way from Connecticut, alone. I do this for three reasons: One, I can carry all my photo equipment (and quite a bit of the family’s stuff) without the hassle of airlines or shipping. And two, I’ve always been a real wuss when it comes to flying. As much as I’ve done it, I still can’t get comfortable with it, mainly because of the turbulence. Oh, I understand the speed as an offsetting factor and all, but you can go fast being shot out of a cannon too and I’m not going to do that either. But the main reason is that I just plain old LOVE to drive. I like seeing the country, moving at my own pace, the freedom, the control…very little turbulence…and I get the same feeling of relaxation while I’m driving to my destination that most people do when they’ve reached it. Especially when I’m going to Los Angeles. Well, this spring I couldn’t drive. With everything going on |
|
at home, including all this new stuff being delivered for the tank, I couldn’t leave a week before the family like I usually do. Nor could I afford to arrive back home a week later. And given that our stay would total less than three weeks, even I thought that giving up a third of it to drive back and forth was just silly. So this time I flew.
It is doubtful that given the same set of circumstances, I ever will again.
First of all, due to all of the new security restrictions, I thought it would be better to ship some of my camera equipment rather than check it unlocked. It was much too big to carry on. So we packed it up tight and shipped it priority. Of course, my 4x5, which is still my main landscape camera, arrived damaged and I didn’t have the time to repair it in LA so that pretty much killed all of my planned side trips. Also, the plane rocked like a sonuvb***h for practically the ENTIRE 5 1/2 hours. This pilot attributed this to unusually strong headwinds and kept reassuring us that it was nothing serious. Now, I don’t know about you, but when even the flight attendants have to buckle up and have a grim look on their faces, I think the situation is serious. Obviously, we made it in all right but it took me two whole days to completely calm down and I gave serious consideration to taking the train back. I DO recall that most of the west-to-east flights were much smoother though so I acquiesced.
|
|
|
|
|
|
