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Archive for Travel

Pretty Good Year

// June 20th, 2010 // No Comments » // Food, Music, Photography, Travel

My last vacation back to Missouri was for Thanksgiving last year. Here is a short video composed of snippets of footage I shot while spending time with the family. Everything was shot with a Canon 5D Mark II outfitted with a Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM Lens and then edited together with Final Cut Pro on a MacBook Pro.

Thanksgiving 2009 from Josh Farr on Vimeo.

Also – the Flickr Set from the trip.

The Mother Road

// June 1st, 2009 // No Comments » // Photography, Travel

At the end of April, I took a bit of vacation time and spent five days driving from San Francisco, CA to my hometown of Springfield, MO. While large portions of the journey were spent mindlessly blazing down the interstate on autopilot, some sections were devoted to sightseeing along the historic Route 66. The 2300 mile adventure was a trip back through eras long past.

On The Road

Oatman, Arizona (population ~128) represents an early 20th century gold mining town turned tourist destination nestled in the Black Mountains. The wild burros descended from the gold prospectors’ original pack animals are one of the primary attractions. The main stretch of town is dedicated primarily to a number of historic buildings housing kitschy stores selling various knick-knacks, t-shirts, and other touristy souvenirs. Bags of carrots are also available for purchase for feeding to the “wild” burros.

Wild Burros of Oatman

The road beyond town is a precarious and winding path that cuts its way through the Black Mountains. There are a number of opportunities to pull off and enjoy the marvelous views of the terrain below. The route eventually leads back to the more well traveled interstate. Across the remainder of Arizona are several small towns which have in some small way managed to continue to exist without being entirely bypassed by the introduction of the modern highway system. Seligman, AZ, the inspiration for the Pixar movie Cars, is a flash back to the 1950′s with it’s themed shops and diners. Have lunch and look around before continuing on down the road to Holbrook, AZ where you can spend the night in the historic Wigwam Motel.

Wigwam Motel - Holbrook, AZ

When the unending stretch of pavement known as I-40 was laid down, it bypassed many of the less direct paths of the old road. There are still a few remnants of the original that can be found out if you’re willing to get off the beaten path a bit. One such section is located in New Mexico on the edge of the Painted Desert. It takes following an apparent dead end service road which turns into a simple dirt road a while before arriving back on some of the roughest 30′s era pavement of the true mother route that still exists in this part of the country. Leading several miles away from the interstate into the desert, one starts to get a true feeling of isolation and a sense of what it must have once felt like to travel across this expansive southwestern desert stretch.

Painted Desert Trading Post

The road eventually leads to a series of sights – the last crumbling remnants of the Painted Desert Trading Post on one side of the road and for the truly adventurous, petroglyphs carved high up in the rock walls of an adjacent mesa. Not much further down the road is the Dead Wash where the rusted out husks of cars lay against the side of a dry river bed, swallowed up by flash floods some unknown decades ago.

Whiting Brothers Station - San Fidel, NM

Traveling these historic routes, a common theme finally begins to emerge. The modernization of the national highway infrastructure slowly bypasses simple service stations, communities and eventually, seemingly entire civilizations. No longer a part of the beaten path, entire towns wither and die off. The structures that were once built to support the livelihoods of their occupants and driven by the commerce of westward movement are left abandoned. Lost in time and slowly ravaged by nature, they’ll eventually crumble back into the dirt on which they were built. For the moment they still stand – halfway between here and eternity – giving a glimpse back to days gone by. These might have been simpler eras full of hope. Now they serve as a haunting reminder of the price of progress for those willing to seek out their message.

Full Gallery

Mexico

// April 24th, 2009 // No Comments » // Photography, Travel

As I’m preparing to embark on a new road trip to the Midwest, I’m reflecting on other past trips. This post has been sitting as a draft for a few months now. It’s about time it finally got polished up and published.

I kept a short journal of the first few days of my vacation in Mexico near the small fishing village of Teacapan. This is how it starts…

It was a 4AM wake up call and I had a 6AM flight from SFO to Phoenix. It’s been raining. At the airport, the self serve kiosks weren’t working. Still trying to print my boarding pass at 5:10AM, I wonder if I’m really going to make it. The system is fixed, I’ve cleared security and finally made it to the gate by 5:30AM. All of this hurrying has led up to the next period of waiting.

An alarm bell starts ringing for a few minutes and a fellow passenger wonders if they found Jack Bauer in the luggage compartment. At last I’m stuck in a window seat just behind the wing. Despite the rain’s best efforts, the plane leaves the ground on time. From a cruising altitude of 39,000 feet there’s a beautiful sunrise. The scenery below consists of lots of mountainous terrain blanketed in snow until the last stretch to Phoenix. It’s only an hour and twenty minutes in the air and then we’re back on the ground.

Playa La Tambora

There’s no terminal switch and just a quick walk to the next departing gate. It’s time for breakfast. I have my choice between a Pizza Hut and an adjoining deli. I choke down part of a ham/egg/cheese croissant from an airport deli and wait out the half hour layover. I’m surrounded by passengers subsisting on pizza & burgers at 9AM. There are lots of army folk in their digital cammo. A flight to Newark seems to be delayed until spring on account of winter weather.

My flight to Mazatlan is delayed from boarding due to customs clearance from the prior inbound flight and maintenance crews on board plane. None of the news sounds promising. Boarding is prematurely begun and then quickly halted for another 20 minutes so maintenance can finish their work. Everyone is finally boarded. Aisle seat. First time ever.

The next week during the Christmas of 2008 was spent enjoying the beach and surrounding towns of Mexico – from both the ground and the air.