Last week, my mother and I drove from California to New Hampshire. We covered 3,000 miles over 75+ hours across 6 days. If you follow me on Instagram you got a pretty good mini-look into our route and the sights we saw on the way, but I am happy to say that I took about 2,000 pictures on my DSLR as well! I rented a D750 and a few new lenses for the trip, so it was super fun for me to finally play with some “fancy” gear. Although the photo opportunities were great, the best thing about the trip was getting to spend so much uninterrupted time with my mom, who I hadn’t seen more than a few times a year during the time she lived on the West Coast. We had an absolute blast, and I can’t wait to share it all here.

On Sunday evening I went directly from work to JFK, just barely making it through security in time to get on my flight. Mom picked me up at LAX and we drove back to their place in Westlake Village for what was basically a nap. We spent the next day getting the rest of the apartment packed up and the car ready to go, finally heading out around 6:30 that evening. I had just received the camera rental in the mail, so I took a few pictures of the apartment complex before we left to get my feet wet and to give Mom and Dad a few photos to remember the place by. They had a pretty sweet view of the pool. 🙂

That’s Bambi, Mom and Dad’s pup. She joined us for the ride!

Our goal for that first evening was just to get out of the LA area so that we could avoid traffic in the morning. I was hoping to stop on Route 66 to see a few old buildings and art installations that I had read about, but we left just a little too late to see them in the daylight. Fortunately for us, we drove the historic road during this awesome sunset.

We stayed that night in Barstow, CA (at a Sleep Inn, not the Motel 66 sadly) and got going pretty early the next morning.

One of the places on my must-stop list was Lake Delores Waterpark, which is now abandoned. In my research before the trip it was recommend by many as a great place to stop and take photos. I even saw it in a car commercial while watching Hulu! What I didn’t know was that not only is the park abandoned, it is totally enclosed by barbed wire and not accessible by car. You may notice the loads of “No Trespassing” and “Beware of Dog” signs in the photos below. There was one little area where the fence was pretty low to the ground, and my mom (being the total badass that she is) was willing to hop it with me and break the law a little bit. It didn’t really seem like there was any actual video surveillance happening (or any dog, for that matter) but nonetheless we got out of there just about as fast as we could.

Next stop: Vegas!