Juneau, the place of Alaska’s first documented serial killer (though I’m sure some indigenous did it first; there’s always someone else who did it first). And on the subject of death, the “Titanic of Alaska”, the Princess Sophia, had grounded herself on a reef just a bit north up the channel from here. For 40 harrowing hours she teetered in gale-force winds beyond the reach of rescue boats, until the rising tide forced her from safety and dragged 353 souls down with her. It’s a horror story that no one seems to know about since news of its sinking was overshadowed by the end of WW1 and Spanish Influenza epidemic. But in the countless bays and channels along Alaska’s coasts there’s probably a horror story for each one.

Lounged in the AM, Staunton State Park in the PM. Before leaving for the park I made some hot water in the coffee machine and mixed in some apple cider mix. For a year the cider packets had sat neglected in the kitchen cabinet farthest from the microwave, and I had to fight the urge to drink the aromatic fruit drink on the spot. I kept my composure though and poured the concoction into a thermos an old roommate left behind and I stepped out the door. It was amazing to hear the crunching sound of fresh snow on the stairs as I left the house!

The Canon RP came in! As far as mirrorless cameras go it’s entry level, but for my rudimentary skills it’s perfect. It sat on the desk next to the laptops for the rest of the work day. As I was logging out for the day I got a call from a 71-year old guy, John, who lives down in the Springs. He was calling about the old 77D DSLR I had listed for sale on Craigslist. He's into photography and knows all about Canon models and apertures, lenses, etc. His son stopped by shortly after to pick it up. I’m sad to see my trusty sidekick that traveled with me from Costa Rica to Canada go, but the feeling quickly ended when I left the house with the new model.

After some research I determined that the Dust Bowl ghost town of Deerfield would make for a great setting for golden hour. But even though the weather cooperated this evening, things can still go off the rails. Somehow, the vast plains and straight roads that ran off into the horizon were too confusing for me. I took a wrong exit (and probably the only exit I could screw up on), and didn’t realize my mistake for almost 40 miles, until I started to suspect I should have seen signs for the abandoned town by then.

I woke up at 6am in the Valley of the Monuments, almost the exact moment that the sun rose above the horizon. It was serene.

Christmas Eve. Left the town of Golden and headed to Lake Louise, listening to Canada Public Radio along the way. Bill Brycen, author of The Body Book, was talking about how there are 8,000 ways a human can die, and you survive all of them except for one. He also said humans have 650,000 hours to live - it made me think that maybe I was wasting my allocation in that moment, even as I drove through British Columbia to photograph the Canadian Rockies.

Went up to Boulder and did research at the library for my book before leaving. A massive snow storm had moved into the area and a severe weather advisory was in effect. This seems like a good time to go out, so I parked at Flatiron Vista and put the snowshoes on to meet it. And what a storm it was! Fog would wind through the forest, obscuring some trees while revealing others. The snow and wind were both so intense that even when standing still, the forest would move around me as parts came and went in the blizzard.

Work was INSANE. It took all my patience and fortitude to not swipe the laptop off the hotel room’s desk and head out into the wilds and live wild. But I persevered and pulled through the crunch session. I logged off and left the Cour d’Alene hotel behind and stopped in Post Falls to have lunch with my boy, the future lawyer. He tells me he managed to get kicked out of Irvine Law School, one of the top schools in the country, over a damn foolish Instagram post he made about guns and asking if anyone wanted to come learn about the 2nd amendment in person.

Cascading light jumped across cloud bellies as the dark sky grumbled. I could only listen under the thick blanket of clouds that blocked out moonlight, blind to it all. Then the storm crackled and lightning fell from the sky, and in a moment the Nebraska plains materialized from jet night. A nearby barn I hadn’t seen was lit up like high noon before disappearing into the black again. Another bolt tears across the eastern sky, and it looks like early morning for a moment with the angle of the shadows. I watched with eyes wide like a child’s, awed by lightning tearing through different parts of the sky and casting shadows at different angles and lengths. It felt the storm’s intensity had broken the structure of time as the same nearby farm kept appearing from the dark but at different times of day as the light hit it at different angles. Each time though it looked like a painting in the 18th-century Baroque style with ultra-high contrasts of light and dark.

I woke up at 11am feeling decent, despite having crashed out just before 5am. I licked my wounds during the afternoon and come evening, packed my gear into the little old Nissan in anticipation of another trip into the mountains. But when I turned the keys in the ignition nothing happened. Silence.

#^%@!!

#^%@#*@ $@^#!!!

Packed up the car and got ready for a trip out to the desert. Seeing all the gear in the trunk makes me realize how committed I’ve become to these little excursions. It’s good to have a hobby that doesn’t involve logging in to something (granted post processing requires software but the overall process still gets me out there).

Hung out at the house in the morning and tried to figure out if I should go North, East, South, or West for the day to shoot.  I ended up heading up towards Nederland and stopped at Golden Gate Canyon State Park, and picked up an annual state park pass for $120.  I can't wait to see all of these parks finally, especially Roxborough. 

This is my first trip home since getting into photography, and I realize now what a different challenge this place is for a landscape shooter. The the local terrain is decidedly underwhelming with its rolling hills and lack of features, but the most contentious part is the lack of light. No other place I’ve traveled has winter days like these, where the sun skirts just briefly over the horizon. But there is so little light here that it in itself becomes profound.

Brrrr… Costa Rica is cold! I could see my breath in the restaurant and the employees all had winter jackets on. As we were heading back to the BnB we found a lone cop car with the hazards on, lighting up alternating sides of the forest, one in red, the other in blue. It was surreal, like a scene from a Blade Runner sequel except set in Costa Rica. A utility truck was parked in the entry way to our place when we got back so we pulled up to a hill that overlooked the activity and saw a transformer had blown. After a while the truck left and went got into the BnB and there was no power, so we crashed out at 8PM with the sound of the winter storm howling across the rooftop.

The fork danced gingerly over the scales, hesitantly prodding and probing the remains, verifying the creature that watched me from the plate was really dead. I could see my unsure reflection in its bulging glassy eye. It was late in the night and I was out of options and I knew it though. We had scoured the nearby blocks for an eatery and this was the only one still open. I was absolutely famished after one airplane meal after another as the international flight flew counter to the Earth’s rotation, condensing two days into 36 hours. Borderline feral from hunger, I brought the dead fish to my lips, took a final breath, and let a soft chunk of its flesh swim down my throat and into my gullet.