5 Years Since My Best Photo Ever, and My Greatest Adventure
I cannot believe it's been 5 years this week since my son Tyler and I along with our friends and the Scouts of Texarkana's Crew 3 went on our "Epic Western Expedition," a 9-day trek across the Southwest United States that checked off a bunch of items on my personal bucket list and allowed me to take what could be the best picture of my life, so far.
Interesting Stats:
- 6 Adults, 11 Young Men
- 2 pickup trucks and one Church Van
- 3700 miles / 9 days
- Total trip expenses $5950 or $350 each
When I saw that last stat I sadly realized that with inflation, gas prices, and food prices, the cost of this trip today would be at least double that per person. The fact that we were able to pull that off at such a low cost is still mind-blowing to me.
This wasn't your typical Scout trip, camping out, learning first aid, doing scouty stuff, this was about friends seeing a bunch of really cool places in the US of A, places that most of us had never seen before, and doing it as cheaply as we could. And we did.
Personal Bucket List check-offs in one trip:
- Grand Canyon
- Wolf Creek Pass
- Colorado Rocky Mountains up close
- Rafting in Cat 4 Rapids
- Mesa Verde
- Route 66 travel
- Seeing the great American West up close and personal
- Hoover Dam
- Petrified Forest
- Making a left turn in Albuquerque (Bugs Bunny reference)
- Four Corners
- Winslow, Arizona (Eagles song reference)
The Greatest Photo I've Taken Yet:
The day I accidentally caught this bird trying to feed his babies was a pretty great day in our Epic Western Expedition, we were in Colorado and earlier had seen Wolf Creek Pass, aka the Great Divide, and played in the snow up there on the first day of summer. We were on our way to the Royal Gorge when we stopped at a rest area with picnic tables to make our lunches, that's when this bird was trying to get to his nest and feed the babies which was up under the roof of our picnic table. We backed off so he could complete his fatherly duties. In the process though I did manage to get this one spectacular shot with my cell phone camera.
Here are a couple of other pics from that day:
Yeah, I know... that was just one day! The entire trip was like that, one spectacular place after another.
If you would like to learn more about how we achieved such a low price per person for this trip, you can read more and see more pictures at the links below:
Maybe I should have titled this "My Greatest Nature Photo", because now that I'm a grandfather, my greatest photos involve a little pigtailed princess who knows me as Poppy. My hope is God will allow me more time for a few more great adventures in this world. Oh, and thank goodness I lost some of that weight, gee whiz!
More From Kicker 102.5
