a week of non-photos

post #387

Today I’ve decided to share how the non-photo life can be experienced by photographers who always see stuff but can’t always immediately make art. For you, my readers, it may simply feel like a litany of photos I didn’t take. But for me, the week has been unusual.  The incentive for all this was to take part in a road trip my sister, Cathy, had planned, starting her trip in New York, driving to North Carolina with a friend and then coming to Kentucky to see me before heading to Missouri and Lincoln, Nebraska and then back home via Indiana and Buffalo. Lots of miles!!

My part started when Cathy and her friend, Judy, who was doing the first part with her, came here from Tennessee after being in North Carolina.

Once Cathy and Judy finally arrived on Monday -- escorted by a neighbor in a pickup truck, leading them from the local store because Cathy had lost her phone that morning and didn’t know where I now live or even what my phone number was but she remembered the store and my name.... Cathy and I had to go into Morehead right away to the Verizon store to replace her phone. They did retrieve her phone numbers, and she kept the same number. Sorry, but I think it’s amazing. And time consuming. Meanwhile Judy cooked up our supper. Bravo, Judy! None of this, needless to say, was of direct relevance to the art part of my life….

Tuesday there were the usual demands of the day, including my finishing reviewing an article, for its English fluency, about Vitamin D that a German friend sent me out of the blue. Cathy spent time setting up her phone, and Judy met a friend at Morehead’s renowned Folk Art Center (which may be closing because of the pinching of funds for public universities. Thanks for nothing, politicians.) Late afternoon we three went over to where I used to live and we ate supper on the porch with R, J and T.  Luckily, this happened after the shower of rain that ended in time for a quick walk to the first waterfall before dinner, but with no time, however, to do the noticing a good photo usually requires, especially when there is a threat of rain. I still haven’t heard how many photographers ruined their cameras during this year’s very wet Kentucky Derby!

Later, at home, there definitely was no time to make a photo record of all that I left undone before going to bed that night, even though I well knew we were leaving early in the morning! Ha!

Early Wednesday is when I left the battery for my point and shoot on a table at home…I guess it was on the way to being recharged but never made it to the plug. It really needed that recharging. I had finally decided not to take my big camera with me because of the heat this time of the year in a closed up car. My photography friend John F. would be rolling his eyes at me, but this time it really wasn’t worth the risk since we would be living out of the car for several days, a car without a trunk.

The morning was spent taking both their car and mine as far as Lexington, where we left mine at the Lexington airport. Then the three of us and our bags squeezed into the little car for the hour and a half ride to Louisville, which included a deluge that required us to pull off on to the shoulder and wait it out. I couldn’t even change positions in the back seat well enough to take an iPhone photo of the storm. 

We left Judy and her baggage at the Louisville airport so she could fly home. A changing of the guard. Cathy and I spent the next four hours driving halfway to Springfield, Missouri. The road was lovely and country and no big trucks. No time to stop either, however. Miles and miles on Route 60 west, and more miles, through the southwest part of Kentucky that I rarely see, yet there wasn’t time or reason for photography. We stayed in a motel en route, and the next night we were to stay all night with our cousin, Doug, his wife, Lois, and her mother, Priscilla. We got lost (near Paducah)! We got found! We got lost (in Springfield)! Finally Doug had to talk us along the final part of our route to their home. An urban sister and a rural sister hit small city challenges! No street signs! No unusual landmarks! Once we arrived, we started right away catching up on multiple family stories since we are a spread out kind of family. What a treat.

Oh yes, at one exit in Kentucky we had tried to find some special bourbon to fill a request from a close friend of my sister’s, but we hadn’t done our research ahead of time; what we found was essentially a factory. Not very picturesque from the outside. Sadly I missed the whole Bourbon Trail.

This might be too long a piece for my blog, so I will leave the last two days for next time. There are some unexpected adventures still to share – in words that imply a reliance on the images we each form in our own heads.

However, I just have to include a single photo by my friend in Germany – obviously not one I made! I thought it a beautiful moment looking out into their back yard. Thanks, Juergen, for sharing this, and for all I learned about Vitamin D.  Really.