Do I stop or don’t I? The answer is ALWAYS STOP TO TAKE THE PHOTO :) After all there isn’t any point in carrying your camera everywhere if you are just going to skip past the opportunists that present themselves :)
This photo is from the final (of many many many) trip that I made in our 5 month long move from Edmonton Alberta to Vancouver BC. This was the final trek over the mountains and when completed it would mean that we had left Alberta behind and we would be officially fully moved to Vancouver.
Our stuff had been in Vancouver since August, Miranda was living there full time since September while I finished selling our studio and shooting my last weddings for the season in Alberta. I had been in Vancouver now for a few weeks but I just had to jet back to move one the last thing, our beloved Volkswagen Beetle. I literally flew into Edmonton, crashed overnight on a friend’s couch, and got up at 4:00AM to make the last hopefully uneventful trek over the mountains to the best coast!
Road tripping in a Beetle isn’t quite the same as normal road tripping. First the gas tank is around 35 liters and even though you get great fuel economy (12 litres /100kms so 250ish km’s to a tank) you still have to stop at every gas station you can. Second speed limit is doable but with the standard 4 speed you are topping out at about 110km on flat ground :) Lastly, it is loud. While our beetle had a new exhaust and was running tip top but it just meant that the car was not over 75-80 dBA :)
What I am saying is a very long winded way is that I was leaving super early and didn’t have much time to see the sights, as it was going a bit longer then normal to get to Vancouer.
One of the sights that I had seen on my trek in August was the sun rising over the Rocky view hills near Cochrane Alberta. Which given that it was now November I somehow managed to be there with the beetle at sunrise again seemed crazy serendipitous. So despite having to drive all day and stopping to fill up every 150 – 250 km’s, I stopped and took photos of the landscape and the sunrise, and when I was walking back to the car this photo of the beetle on the bluff I had parked at….
2.5 hours later I was crossing over into British Columbia and leaving that old world Officially behind
This photo was the last photo that I took in Alberta and has become one of my more cherished photos that I have taken over the years because it is a representation of officially closing a chapter and starting a new one and it is a great reminder that despite all, you need to Always Remember To Stop.