1996: Ohio to Alaska. And back.

I’ve driven between the midwest and Alaska 6 times:

1996 Ohio to Alaska
1996 Alaska to Ohio
2001 Kentucky to Alaska
2010 Alaska to Missouri
2010 Ohio to Alaska
2013 Alaska to Ohio

And I’ve got some photos from these epic 4,000-mile journeys. This post is the first in a series, covering the 1996 up-and-back trips, from a time when my camera gear was based on film.

May 1996: Columbus, Ohio to Girdwood, Alaska

In early 1996 I was teaching high school and… not enjoying it. While I always enjoyed academics, it turned out being on the teaching side of the equation (especially in a high school) was not what I wanted from life, so I was looking for a way out. During that year’s spring break, I took a trip to Anchorage, Alaska—an unusual move for a first-year teacher. Plus, I’d never visited before.

While in Alaska I looked for jobs, figuring I could find something and head north at the end of the school year. And in fact, I did. I connected with the near Alyeska Resort and landed a job offer for a hotel front desk role that could start in June. I went back to Ohio, announced my intention to leave, and took off in late May, about 3 weeks before the end of the school year.

I got rid of stuff, ended my apartment lease, packed up my Honda Accord, and took to the highway, booking 16+ hour days of driving alone. These are some of the photos.

There’s an arch on I-70 on the border with Indiana that’s been there for decades, heralding my completion of the first of 11 states and territories over the next 4,000 miles. I would cross Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, a bit of Nebraska, South Dakota, Montana, Alberta, British Columbia, the Yukon Territory, and finally arrive in Alaska.

Driving across South Dakota and Montana exposed me to the classic American West, including this antique—but still working—pickup truck.

Montana is criss-crossed with 2-lane back roads worthy of exploration. The state is so huge, and that “big sky country” moniker is more apt than you might expect.

You might think driving an average car to Alaska is impossible—that you need a 4×4 SUV to make it. Nope. A Honda Accord is all it took back in 1996 (and I drove a far-smaller car in 2013). Here I stopped to see runoff from the Matanuska Glacier. I’ll never forget the awe I felt when I stopped here, turned off the car, and listened to boulders being rolled over under the rushing runoff waters. No wonder glaciers carved such sharp lines through the landscape. Welcome to Alaska.

August 1996: Girdwood, Alaska to Toledo, Ohio

While in Alaska the job went… okay, not great. I tried getting a different (better paying) job, but that didn’t pan out. Meanwhile, my mother back in Ohio was diagnosed with cancer and I was feeling pretty funny about living on the edge of civilization while things back home were in flux. So by the end of August I was packing up again, and headed out from my apartment in Girdwood to make the drive back to Ohio.

I had assumed I would be in Alaska for years, so I went ahead and got local plates (which I was exceedingly proud of, and would be again in the future). Here I stopped for a break beside one of my two favorite lakes along the Alaska Highway: Muncho Lake in the heart of the northern Canadian Rockies.

A wider shot from the side of Muncho Lake. And yes, driving the Alaska Highway will make your car absolutely filthy. The gravel dust is epic.

On the Alaska Highway, wildlife is everywhere. Sometimes on the road. These are some juvenile caribou. But in future trips I’ll have some Bison to share.

Somewhere in Alberta I stopped to make dinner on the side of the Alaska Highway, pulling out the camp stove and boiling water for a hot meal. Luckily, no bears.

The “open road” may be the most American thing about me. I love it. It’s actually less fun these days, with so much traffic and bad driving behaviors everywhere (or maybe I just notice it more). But man… I love those long-distance runs out West. Perhaps that’s why I happily made all 6 trips up and down the Alaska Highway.

Thanks for reading! This was the first post in a five-part series covering all my north-south trips. Subscribe for future releases.

Petula Clark +60 years

When you’re alone and life is making you lonely
You can always go downtown

Things will be great when you’re downtown

When you’ve got worries, all the noise and the hurry
Seems to help, I know, downtown

Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city

Everything is waiting for you, downtown

Our most European city

I made a springtime trip to Washington, DC this year. I was there for a conference but also got some walking-around time, had an official visit to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and even a tour at the White House itself. I deeply appreciate how Washington was (at least originally) developed in a classical European style, both in layout and architecture, and wish other American cities had taken note.

A spring evening walk to the White House yielded soft colors amid the budding leaves and perfectly-manicured lawn.

The Eisenhower Executive Office Building is a nearly-Roccoco structure inside and out, which offers a lot of interesting angles, even if the overall architectural effect is…. a bit much.

Georgetown University certainly has its old-school buildings, which they wrap with some nice green spaces and plenty of walking paths for the thousands of students. Sadly, not all of the buildings are classical designs.

Detail from inside the EEOB, snapped while on the move inside this ridiculously-busy building.

Ceiling details from the meeting room our conference group used briefly during our EEOB visit with the United States Digital Service (USDS).

Ah, the State of Ohio flag, draped amongst all the others at the Kennedy Center. There’s a “throwback” feeling to the facility that almost feels like you’ve been transported back to the Kennedy era in DC.

Ceiling detail from inside the main concert hall at the Kennedy Center. The hexagonal patterns definitely mark the timeframe of the building’s design, reminding me of the Philharmonie Berlin facility in Germany, which also feels frozen in mid-century.

I’m not a fan of chandeliers, really, but sometimes they are just so over the top you have to appreciate teh workmanship. In this case this is from inside the White House, in one of the dining or state rooms (can’t remember which).

If you’re going to go on a White House tour, you have to appreciate the George Washington portrait, which was even saved from the destruction of the original White House in 1814.

There are several official portraits on display in the White House, but none of them are as striking as the Obama portrait, with the photographic style and the total absence of a background.

Finally, perhaps my favorite architecture in DC: the many Metro stations and their repetitive concrete forms on the walls and ceilings. There’s something about this simple, brutalist design that feels “right” for a subway. It’s human-accessible in terms of materials and simplistic design, but it takes on a grand appearance at scale.

Fire

I love a good fire.

Last year we picked up a Solo Stove and I enjoyed it through the summer. And as spring turns to summer here in Ohio, the stove is back out and warmed up. Here are a few fire photos from the collection to warm you up.

I grew up in a world of 110 film. So it is *stunning* to me that the smartphone cameras in our pockets today are sensitive enough to capture fire’s plasma so clearly and sharply.

One of my favorite things to do, in the right weather, is to sit out by the fire with my laptop and catch up on work or personal email or other tasks.

Ahhh… the classic campfire. It’s been a few years but I do enjoy finding fallen sticks while out on a backpacking trip and building a fire by hand.

Finally: a fire I **didn’t** start. This is a night shot, from quite a distance, of the **Kilauea** caldera back in 2011. While I didn’t get to see a full-on eruption, the caldera was at least filled and fired up in a small crater toward the center of the volcano.

Solar Eclipse 2024

What a week to be doing a weekly photo post! Despite our home being within the path of totality, we ventured west to the Indiana / Ohio border to double our time in the shade. We jumped from 2 minutes to 4 minutes of totality, and it was worth it. I’ve got photos to share and a couple timelapse videos as well.

We were within 1 mile of the absolute center line of the eclipse, hanging out in a Darke County nature sanctuary — a clump of trees that hadn’t been converted to farmland. Our original choice was a more open area just to the east, but it was swamped by the time we arrived around 10:00 a.m. Eastern.

Eclipse photos

*With eclipse glasses deployed and our dog Whisky being actively calmed, we were ready for totality. (The dog was fine during the eclipse. She seemed a little confused, but not stressed.)*

To our west was the classic American farmhouse and barn. And the day was cloudy, but the clouds were high-altitude stratus that were thin enough to not get in the way of the eclipse. It did mess with my camera’s autofocus, however.

Once I got home, I found this shot in my collection—I couldn’t see this out in the field with the tiny screens I had available to me. It appears I captured a commercial jet flying overhead during the start of the partial eclipse.

The high clouds definitely messed with my photos, making it look like the edge of the sun’s crescent were rounded in several photos. It may also have been part of my filter, which in this case I was using a high-powered variable ND filter rather than a static solar filter.

*Finally THE MOMENT arrives — totality begins with a final blast of photons over the top of the moon.*

I have a ton of these shots, each one slightly different. My camera did indeed pick up some of the orange prominences around the disc, but despite being a 600mm zoom lens (35mm equivalent), I couldn’t get NASA-level quality images of the orange flares. Still… I have a bunch of these shots and they are delightful.

*A few stars and a planet came out to play during totality, and a “360 sunrise” was visible in every direction.*

A wide shot of totality gives up the wild colorscapes in play, from the darkness space with cold stars shimmering through to the warm horizon, plus an obscured sun. Just a stunning experience in person.

And finally The Diamond Ring. I have a few of these and they are stunning. I didn’t get a shot like this during the 2017 eclipse because I was using a solar filter. So glad I learned more and experimented this time.

Timelapses in 1080p

I took some GoPro cameras along and set them up for timelapse and video work. They were automatically adjusting to light levels, so the full eclipse experience isn’t there, but it was the only way to be able to keep shooting through the changing conditions. Nevertheless, it’s pretty cool to see the shadow arrive across the horizon and pass on as well.

Real-time eclipse video in 4K

In addition to the timelapse cameras, I setup one GoPro to record a 4K real-time video of the main event. Again, the sensor compensates for the darkening environment, so the experience isn’t perfectly representative. But it gives a good sense. If you watch carefully, you’ll see the flashing strobes on the single-engine plane that flew overhead at the start of totality.

Future eclipses?

Will I chase future solar eclipses? Probably not. I do enjoy them—a lot!—but I wouldn’t fly around the world to catch one. Hopefully I’m still alive when the next big one crosses much of the contiguous United States in 2045, but I would be in my 70s, so who knows.

Gratitude via photons

I don’t maintain a gratitude journal or anything like that. Or maybe I do? Perhaps my photo collection, and the photos I take, are the very journal I seek. Here are 3 recent shots that spark a little thankful reflection.