Seattle, Washington

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Seattle, Washington

I follow a parade of RV's wallowing up the winding highway passing Oregon and Washington's coast. From time to time I pull over and walk across the sand to the ocean's edge, and reach down to touch the cold sea.

I'm getting close.

I arrive ten minutes after the Bremerton ferry sails, so I have an hour to kill. Walking up to Starbucks, I see a big "Welcome Home" sign in the window. How thoughtful, I think, until I see it's dedicated to returning sailors aboard the USS John Stennis.

The Hyak sails away from her dock right on time, and we share Puget Sound on a summer afternoon with a bevy of powerboats and yachts under sail. A lone jet skier romps in our wake.

Mount Rainier rises above the haze, and the Seattle skyline slides into view from behind a headland. We sail closer and I can't imagine a better way to approach home than from the sea. In truth, I've spent the past week thinking about this moment, closing the circle I've made around the country.

I'm shooting and shooting, waiting for some epiphany to bring it all together for me. Just as the city fills the frame, my camera batteries fail.

Sigh.

Welcome home.

7 comments:

alex hayden said...: Welcome home!!!; July 16, 2009 at 6:48:00 AM PDT
U. Ville said...: Life's little ironies.; July 16, 2009 at 8:49:00 AM PDT
Photobby said...: Glad you made it! What a trip. I am sure there are stories that didn't make it into the blog-log, I'd love to hear them... You really should put a book together... Single shot, short story.; July 16, 2009 at 10:24:00 AM PDT
Paul Souders said...: Thanks guys. Once I get all 50 states, maybe later in the year, that's my plan, to put together a book of some sort. In my spare time...; July 16, 2009 at 11:07:00 AM PDT
Unknown said...: Wow, it's been 48 states already? I'm sure it seemed quicker to those of us following your blog than it did to you. Nice work! This trip of yours has been a bunch of fun to follow.; July 17, 2009 at 7:51:00 AM PDT
Paul Souders said...: Hi Austin,

Actually, I had to scale back my ambitions a little bit. I simply ran out of time, so I wound up skipping the heartland.

By my count, I missed 11 states (plus Alaska and Hawaii). I'm hoping to head back out either this fall or next spring to do the rest.

In the meantime, I leave for Iceland and Svalbard, Norway next Saturday. Stay tuned...

Cheers,
Paul; July 17, 2009 at 12:47:00 PM PDT
Unknown said...: Great series, enjoyed reading your commentary about the places you visited.; August 4, 2009 at 6:50:00 AM PDT

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INTRODUCTION

For much of my adult life, I have been lucky enough to get paid doing the things I love most. My work as a itinerant travel and wildlife photographer has sent me around the world and across all seven continents.

Over the last two decades, I have had ample opportunity to appreciate the absurdities of life on the road, having once spent 27 memorable hours during my first trip to Kenya digging a bogged safari truck out using only a sauce pan. In addition to my work in Africa, I have traveled extensively in Alaska, Australia, Antarctica and Asia.

I hope to work my way through the rest of the alphabet in a timely fashion.

Each year, I spend five or six months on the road. Along the way, I try to make time to scribble something in my notebooks. More often than not, it’s about whatever mishap has befallen me on any particular day. This collection offers a random sample from those journals, notebooks and emails.