Day 1. From L.A. to the North and Beyond
The Adventure is…
… just the beginning.
The packing of the last few of my most needed belongings was finally complete and I hit the road for the Northern Territories and the final frontier: Alaska. Not knowing what I would encounter, which routes to travel, or what adventures would be in in store, I left behind my life in Los Angeles that I had both been born into had honed into a well oiled machine. The dream of cracked pavement speeding past beneath me and the fading city in my rear-view stoked the fire within me, and the dream became reality in the first week of September.
“And now I venture off into the vast unknown. Out onto paths untraveled, and into the forests thick. Mountains and valleys will be my vistas. The deserts and oceans my playground. Into the wild I will roam, and beyond the map I’ll find my home. ”
My first destination was to Hernandez Reservoir, up the I-5 and just east from Big Sur, which was as far as I could travel, by the time I was packed and left LA. I had to stop in Santa Barbara to pick up a spare tire/wheel from an ad I found on Craigslist. For as many corners as I had to cut to hit my target departure date, I wasn’t about to make this 10,000 mile trip without a spare tire. On my way off the highway and into the mountains towards the reservoir, I spotted a massive eagle sitting up in a large tree. I pulled off the road and grabbed my telephoto lens and just watched him for over 5 minutes. Such an amazing sight to be blessed with on my first day out. I felt it was an indication and a reminder that my vastly unknown plans, my unsure steps, and the long and winding path before me would be guided.
Here are some of the first images I took on my first day out on the road, camping that night at the Hernandez Reservoir.
