2022 Porsche Taycan

Today I’m bringing you Fall pictures of a brand new 2022 Porsche Taycan in Carrara White Metallic with matching 21" Mission E Design Wheels.  This Taycan hadn’t even been in the country a week when I took these pictures, and was fresh back from tint and PPF application.

This was my last photoshoot before the leaves fell, and I’m glad I got to get that last Fall shoot with a car, since it’s an Autumn tradition amongst my friends to cruise our cars up to Skyline Drive for colorful photos - a tradition that fell through this year due to the quantity and timing of other scheduled photoshoots I’ve had this Fall.

This is a location I’d like to try again in the future, when the nearby construction is wrapped up and offers more angles and perspectives - we planned this shoot and didn’t realize half the area was closed off for construction until arriving, but made do with what was available.  As night fell, the Forza vibes really came out with the cool colors contrasting with the Taycan’s futuristic rear lightbar.

Anytime you stage a car, especially a performance car, you attract attention - this time was no different, with onlookers periodically stopping to spectate me staging the car and framing shots.  But this was the first time I’ve had wildlife get curious too - a 7 point buck watched closely over my photoshoot and his doe and two fawn foraging nearby.  It was pretty remarkable that a buck so large to elicit the sense of hunting season would be so calmly nearby at a location where DC is visible to the naked eye across the river.

Portia and Nick: Married October 2nd, 2021

Just as Summer was drawing to a close and Autumn was beginning to shift the trees’ colors warmer, Portia and Nick, accompanied by their family and friends, gathered at the quaint Ballenger Farm in Hamilton, Virginia to say “I do” and dance the night away celebrating tying the knot.

The farm has free range chickens, much to the entertainment of younger guests, and a lucky black barn cat that wants allllll the cuddles - he even curled up in my lap for a few minutes while I was on the ground capturing a low angle!  The chickens; oh my goodness, I just have to say, I captured a photo that ranks among those I’m most proud of in recent time during Portia and Nick’s ceremony - the free range chickens freely roamed, including one keen to be included in the wedding, photobombing the readings!  Truly one of my most favorite captures at a wedding in years, and it’s a great example of how I approach weddings and all events with a photojournalistic eye and mindset.

As night fell on the dinner party, Portia and Nick shared their first dance under the stars to a medley sung by a close friend to wish the newlyweds well as they start a new chapter together.  Afterwards, everyone retired to the patio to dance and enjoy drinks and dessert.

Rhode Island: Summer 2017

Foreward in 2021

This is a blog post and collection of photos from my first-ever visit to Rhode Island that I’ve had in my personal backlog to edit and write about for several years; the photos have been done and waiting to be posted for almost three years, and I even completed the entire photo layout design and part of the copy on a flight two years ago… since then, it’s all just been sitting, sadly collecting dust.

The reason this happened is for several reasons; I put all personal work on the backburner until paid work is done, and by time these photos were done being edited, I had already gone back to Rhode Island to visit Alyssa once again, with an even larger batch of photos to edit, post, and blog about. The intention was to get those photos done as well, and post both blogs and photosets back-to-back.

Well, that’s essentially what’s happening now - I just recently, two solid years later, finished editing the last of my Rhode Island photos from 2018 (it was a much larger, more daunting set - I might be breaking it into multiple blog posts - you’ll why see, in time), and now I’m circling back to compose posts, and do what I should have done years ago, but sticking with the original plan of posting both sets at the same time.

Most of this post was composed in 2020; you’ll see the time of writing denoted in the post itself to account for any changes in context or subject matter resulting from the time passed.

So, it’s 2021, but these photos are all from 2017, long before COVID-19 was ever a worry.  And this 2017 trip had long-term impacts on me that still affect me to this day, so perhaps it’s good I’m writing about it so much later (read about it below).

So, after many years of anticipation, here is my 2017 trip to Rhode Island, which includes airports, islands, scooters, and boats.

DCA - PVD

NOTE: Everything from this point until denoted below was written in 2018.

For the last several years, Alyssa has come down from Rhode Island to visit with me, typically during my birthday week, but the opportunity to visit her hadn’t conveniently presented itself until this year - naturally I chose her birthday week, since it was becoming an unofficial tradition.

The last time I flew out of DCA the A Concourse was strictly JetBlue, which should tell you how many years it had been since I flew out of DCA.  Now it is exclusively Southwest; this would by my first trip on WN.  I’d always heard Southwest is either love / hate, so I wanted to try it for myself.  Anytime I fly I like to arrive early enough to grab a meal, a coffee, and catch up on emails in a relaxed timeframe.  It just happened that my travel date unfortunately had some of the worst weather the East coast had seen that Summer.  A severe thunderstorm spanning the entire length of the coast was rolling through the region, causing ground-stops at multiple airports including DCA.  My flight out was delayed by over 4 hours.  Not a big deal given how good Page’s (DCA Concourse A) food is.

Once the storm had finally passed through, flights boarded and began departing normally again.

Upon entering PVD’s airspace, I could see during our approach they were doing some night work on one of their runways.  I ended up getting a pretty good nighttime aerial view of T. F. Green International Airport because this also turned out to be my first go-around flight.  Our aircraft had to go-around when a departing flight on our arrival runway failed to depart when cleared.  This added about 5min to our flight time to climb back to altitude while turning sharply, and rejoin the approach pattern.

It made for a long and interesting day of travel.

Newport Winery

NOTE: Everything from this point forward was written in 2020, despite being photographed in 2017.

Alyssa had taken the entire week off for birthday festivities, and although we didn’t have a plan for every single day I’d be in town, we did have some plans in mind.

First up was wine tasting in Newport; anytime Alyssa comes to DC I take her to a new winery, since we have a lot of them.  Now it was her turn, and she chose Rhode Island’s largest vineyard which is also widely regarded as its most elegant.  I found it very similar to Virginia’s Stone Tower Winery, which is about as near to a Napa Valley vineyard you can get without leaving the DC region.

We had booked a reservation for a winery tour, to learn about the vineyard’s history, see its winemaking operations, and taste a selection of the 32 wines Newport Winery makes.

You’ll also notice in all photos of me that I’m wearing a knee brace - this trip was three months after my patellar dislocation, and two months before undergoing MPFL Reconstruction surgery, so the knee brace was there to help prevent another excruciating dislocation, and provide at least some stability until I got my knee fixed.  I’m happy to report, today, that my surgery was totally successful, and after a 6 month recovery, I’ve now been running half-marathon distances problem-free and in respectable times for two years, an endurance milestone I had never reached before the initial injury.

A fog rolled in while we were outside enjoying glasses of wine we’d ordered after the tour and two rounds of tastings; beside the people I hold dear in Rhode Island, the coastal fog is possibly my favorite thing about the Ocean State.

Block Island

The next day, Alyssa’s family had planned out an overnight trip to Block Island to celebrate her birthday on the beach.  I didn’t know what Block Island was except for “it’s like Martha’s Vineyard, but smaller;” having never been to Martha’s Vineyard, that description didn’t help me one bit.

Just after sunrise, we headed to Galilee, Narragansett to catch the high-speed ferry to Block Island; about a 30min ride on a hot rod boat with 4 engines and 4,400 horsepower.  Unbeknownst and unfortunately for everyone, the ocean offshore had become very choppy, with waves in excess of 10 feet, which for a cruise ship is jostling but fine, but for a 99ft catamaran, it’s a bucking bronco.  I’ve only felt motionsickness twice in my life, and this was one of those times; somehow, unlike most passengers aboard, I somehow managed to not vomit.  The ride was so rough you had to hold onto your seat to keep from being lifted from it, and anything not sitting on the floor at the start of the journey had been thrown to it by time we reached the island.  Even the crew was caught by surprise how much it picked up since their last run an hour earlier.  The few pictures I have while on the water are from by the shore when it was stable enough to stand - my stomach was still spinning an hour after disembarking.

We’d originally planned on eating upon arrival, but that was out of the question for obvious reasons.  Instead we decompressed on the beach for a little, and then head into town to pick up scooters Alyssa had reserved once the ground didn’t feel like it was spinning anymore.

So here’s the part that still affects me to this day.  Each of us driving a scooter had to demonstrate competency driving the scooter before being allowed to take off on one.  Alyssa… was given a hesitant pass after her wobbly solo demonstration; we were sharing a scooter, and the staffer said, “ehhh, why don’t you let him drive you around as a passenger on it for a while first.”  So off we went, Alyssa riding along behind me as our pack of 3 scooters explored the island’s twisting, foggy roads.  After a while of riding, stopping here and there to check out views of the cliffs and shoreline, Alyssa decided it was her turn; “it’s my birthday, it’s my turn!”  So after reminding her how to start the thing (which should have been red flag number two), I hopped on back behind her, grabbing onto the bar very firmly, as I was scared of somehow reinjuring my knee.  Alyssa gave the scooter some gas to creep up the shoulder to the road, but gave it a too much, lurching the scooter forward.  She panicked and mixed up the throttle and the brake, pinning the gas; I yelled “ALYSSA,” but it was too late - I got thrown off the back, landing on my tailbone and crashing my head on the ground, and she launched herself and the scooter into a ditch dense with bushes.

The helmet did its job and I didn’t feel a thing up top - I laid on my back for a few minutes gathering my self from the shock and the wind that was knocked out of me, though my tailbone was sore for weeks afterward.  What wasn’t evident until much later was what happened to my neck.  Several weeks after this incident, once back home, I started experiencing an ongoing pinched nerve down my left arm; it kept happening - it would slightly improve, then overnight blow up again.  This started in the week before my knee surgery, so I wasn’t allowed to take anything for it, and I wasn’t about to delay the surgery any longer.  I successfully had my knee surgery and made a full recovery, but this problem kept getting worse and worse while rehabbing post-op.

Without going into an even lengthier amount of detail, this incident created a recurring slipped disc and subsequent trigger points for the last 3 years since it has happened, and landed me in physical therapy twice now.  The slipped disc seems to be healed, and it’s been a slow battle against chronic trigger points for about a year now.  I have a really good PT, and the goal is to get my neck and shoulder totally under control so it doesn’t keep spiraling into severely seized muscle spasm; we’re pretty close as of this writing.

I don’t blame Alyssa one bit; it was an accident, and I didn’t even tell her the cause of my shoulder pains until she was in town two months ago as of this writing - she’s one of my best friends, and I knew she’d have felt too guilty until now.

So, I got knocked off a scooter, Alyssa launched herself into some bushes, and her birthday wasn’t really off to a good start.  Oh, and now the scooter wouldn’t start once her family dug it out of the bushes - we think it was just oil pressure or something from being flipped over, because after letting it sit upright for about 10min it finally started back up.  Once it was clear I was okay, everyone, especially Alyssa, agreed she wasn’t driving it at all, and I’d drive it the rest of the day.  The small crowd of concerned onlookers that had gathered dispersed when Alyssa and I hopped on and slowly got back on the road - I drove us probably not even a mile, just regathering my bearings, and then we stopped to check out a lighthouse.  But first, we got a picture of Alyssa with the scooter since it’s what she’d been looking forward to all week - if you look closely, there is actually blood on the side of it from where she scraped her ankle.

I told Alyssa she wasn’t supposed to take “you’re a pain in the ass” so literally as we gingerly walked to the foggy lighthouse; my tailbone throbbing, her ankles skinned.

Interestingly, there was a September 11th memorial bench nearby the lighthouse; one of two 9/11 memorials on the island.  There is no information about the memorial on the island beyond the memorial’s own engraving, but this bench is dedicated to Catherine Carmen Gorayeb who moved from Boston to New York and perished in the World Trade Center collapse where she worked.

At this point, our group of six broke off our own directions in pairs.  Alyssa and I’s next stop was nearby Mohegan Bluffs to stretch our legs a bit, although we didn’t hike all the way down to the beach; the rough surf we’d endured to arrive on the island was starting to roll in, and we had reserved a beachfront spot on a calmer, more protected section of shore on the other side of the island - later.

One more stop with the scooter; I found out Block Island has a small airport, Block Island State Airport (BID), and I wanted to check it out.  It’s a GA airport, but does have some commercial aviation.  It had been, quite clearly, a VERY long morning, and our stomachs were finally stable and starving, so it was time to return the scooter and grab some lunch.  I never turn down a lobstah roll, so naturally:

While we were eating, some bikers parked their choppers out front.

It had been a long morning, and we still hadn’t done anything on the beach yet.  It was time for a drink… or a few.  This was my first time drinking from a fruit, and just relaxing with a drink(s) on the beach!  Not many pictures of the beach since we kept the pineapple Long Islands flowing and went swimming a few times with the cameras safe from the sand.

It was getting late, and we weren’t staying on the island, so it was time to catch the ferry back - no high-speed ferry amplifying the surf this time; hell no.  Even-though the morning’s high-speed experience was an outlier according to everyone (including the crew, and Alyssa and her family who all go to Block Island several times a year), we weren’t in any mood for that chance again, so we took the much larger, regular speed ferry back to Narragansett.  Not a good sign: we spotted vomit on the deck when we boarded, but the 1 hour ride back was just fine.

There’s little reason I would have known about the project on my own, but the return trip gave a fantastic view of the Block Island Wind Farm; a five turbine offshore wind-farm that serves as a demonstration of oceanic wind power generation, and became the first commercial off-shore wind farm in the United States when it became operational in 2016.

Neither Alyssa nor I made the hotel reservation, but we stayed at the diviest hotel I’ve ever been to in my life.  I only have a photo of the parking lot, which had a small (read: Hitchcock-esque) seagull problem mirroring the rest of the motel.

The room keys were punch-hole keycards which I don’t remember ever seeing except maybe once as a young child in the early 90s.  The faded room number was Sharpied onto the card, indicating the motel reused the easily duplicated keycards.

This motel permanently shut down a few months after our stay.  Like most beach hotels, we used it as a place to wash the sand off and crash after spending all day out, but still, wow.

Everyone got back together at night to get some Rhode Island specialties for Alyssa’s birthday dinner: Rhode Island clam chowdah, clam cakes, and fried whole-belly clams.  New England hands-down has the best seafood; Maine is for lobster - go to Rhode Island for clam (I also got raw oysters; yay!).

Afterwards, some of us went barhopping until the wee-hours of the morning and every bar in Galilee closed down.

Narraganset

The next morning Alyssa and I had a lazy, no-plan day exploring Narraganset, stopping by Point Judith Lighthouse and the rocky shoreline.

Of course, lunchtime came around, and I never turn down a lobstah roll; I got another helping of Rhode Island clam chowder too.  Monahan's Clam Shack happens to be rated the second-best lobster roll in the Ocean State by Buzzfeed, and makes their Top 25 list in the country.

Stopping by Sunset Farms’ farmer’s market, we said hi to their goats and gave some love to the owners’ elderly Irish Wolfhound sheepdog (who has sadly since passed away).

While there, I happened to catch a rare car spot.  At under 100 examples ever produced, I caught the WaterCar Panther as it pulled in to load up - I *think* it was the farm’s owner’s(?).  This amphibious Jeep conversion is WaterCar’s more practical successor to its Corvette-powered Python, capable of launching itself and reaching speeds of 85mph on land and 45mph on water.

PVD - DCA

The next morning, this trip was at an end on a cool, drizzly morning that lended for some aerial views of the bays and rivers that only appeared as inky-black splotches beneath the low cloud cover on my nighttime flight into PVD.

Stay tuned several more posts including photos from my 2018 trip to Rhode Island.  My stay in 2018 was longer and more involved, and really makes most logical sense broken into separate posts given some of the places I went and things I did.

Christmastime in Chicago - The Complete Jaunt

By now you probably read about my small (read: big) obsession with Chicago O’Hare’s Terminal 3 and how ORD decorates it for Christmas, just like in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (Terminal 3 is seen in the original Home Alone, but without holiday decorations).  I shared a glimpse of my early-December trip to Chicago before Christmas, highlighting these decorations at O’Hare.  Today you get to see my entire journey to Chicago in December, not just the Christmas portions.

This was actually my second time to Chicago for a photography assignment at Chicago O’Hare International Airport in two months - my personal photos from my ATL-ORD-SFO trip in October are in progress; work assignment photos always come first.  You’ll see the photos from that trip at some point this Spring, so you’re seeing these trips out of order.  In October, due to the logistics of my photo assignments, I only had an evening free in Chicago before flying to San Francisco for the next photoshoot, and I was lucky to even get that.  This time, in December, ORD was my only airport to cover, so I was able to schedule an extra day in case of weather or scheduling issues, allowing me to explore a city I’d never truly seen before.

Day 1: Arrival

All journeys have to start somewhere, and Dulles’ slogan is Your Journey Begins With Us - Steve and his team always deck out IAD with new additions every year.  There was new colorful LED uplighting inside Eero Saarinen’s Main Terminal Building this year, but I never got to see it in person this year, departing in daylight.  Here is Dulles’ Main Terminal AeroTrain station all set for Christmas! 

I think everyone does this, but it’s always fun to spot places you know or frequent from the air.  Living so close to Dulles, on this pattern I always see a shopping center I visit, but got to see my old high school from the air lit up for football thanks to a banking turn.

I always prefer a window seat anyway, but by far Chicago is one of the prettiest cities to see from the air at night.  If you ever visit this city, you must get a window seat and arrive at night.  Chicago is the only city I’ve truly been excited to specifically see from the air.  This, my second time taking in Chicago’s sprawl, I was joined by a British Airways flight abeam my plane also on final.  For about 5 minutes until we landed simultaneously I spotted the BA flight appearing and dissapearing in and out through the low cloud-cover above the peach glow of the sea of sodium lights below.

 The Grid; a digital frontier.  Maybe one day I’ll photograph the moonrise along the Chicago skyline in tribute to the masterful work of Ron Fricke and Godfrey Reggio.

My flight on United arrived in Terminal 1, and since it was nighttime upon landing and my photoshoot the next day was in the morning, I took an extra hour to walk all the way over to Terminal 3, stand in awe of the beautiful light display, take pictures of it, and walk all the way back to Terminal 1 to exit and claim my bag - this way I was sure to get photos of the decorations during night and daylight. Totally worth it, and a huge airport bucket-list item checked off.  These lights are seen adorning walkways between Terminal 1 and 2. 

Made famous in Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, Terminal 3 is where the McCallisters perform the McCallister family travel tradition of springing to their gate. The McCallisters fly out of the K Gates in Home Alone, and the H Gates in Home Alone 2, while Kevin gets separated at the Y-split, boarding his flight to New York out of the K Gates. A fun factoid if you watch the movies closely is the Terminal 3 Christmas decorations only appear in Home Alone 2. 

My travel days mostly only consist of traveling and getting settled in upon arrival.  Before heading to the hotel to settle in, I got to say hello to the O’Hare dinosaur, watching over the silent Terminal on my way back to baggage claim to head to the hotel.  I chose a different hotel this time because I had nothing but logistic problems with the hotel I stayed at in October.  Not only did I get a deal on the room, but this one was much closer, and on the off-chance their airport shuttle didn’t run like the shuttle at my previous hotel, this one has rail service and is only one stop from the airport.  This hotel was much more convenient and gave me reliable and quick transportation.

Day 2: Photoshoot

During my photoshoot the next day, I got to see Terminal 3’s decorations in daylight; I’d expected and looked forward to this, becuase Christmas lights turn me into a wide-eyed little kid.  It’s beautiful at night and during the day for different and unique reasons.

Day 3: Downtown Chicago

The day after my photoshoot was free for flexibility or inclement weather, so I decided to go downtown and explore some of the places I didn’t get to in October.  This time I had a few destinations in mind, but was content to explore without a rush.  In contrast to having only a handful of hours beginning at sunset in October, I had an entire day, which let me explore in daylight.  The sun did nothing, however to counteract the single-digit temperatures I was braving this time around.

A few blocks from the subway, my first planned desination was the Christkindlmarket Chicago; a German Christmas market serving German food and selling German Christmas wares.

After eating some bratwurst, a stuffed pretzel, and some hot chocolate with Krampus, I set off toward Navy Pier, and decided to stop by Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate along the way; I’d photographed Cloud Gate at night in October (one of only three stops I had planned and successfully squeezed in in October), but decided to see it in daylight as well since I wasn’t too far from it. 

My impression of Cloud Gate is that it is more beautiful on a clear day like this one, but the experience is more enjoyable at night due to much fewer people.  Millenium Park also had sections blocked off for Christmas light displays which hadn’t been present to obstruct some views whe I was here in October. 

The reflection of the skyline is mesmorizing.  Going underneath “the bean” absorbs all the city din, only reflecting echos of gabbing passersby. 

Obligatory selfie reflection on “the bean.”

I noticed the fancy scroll architecture in October, but didn’t wander over to see what it was; I imagine seeing a concert here is like across between Wolf Trap and Merriweather Post Pavillion.

Also of interest was stumbling onto the NBC building in Chicago; I didn’t know they had one, but it’s interesting to me since I’ve been inside 30 Rock and toured sets of some of their shows including The Doctors, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and Saturday Night Live. 

If the Maggie Daley Ice Skating Ribbon had been open while I was there, I’d have actually considered trying a few laps on it.  (Ice is how I dislocated my knee and tore my MPFL requiring reconstruction in 2017, so this is quite the statement).  I’ve only been ice skating twice in my life, and I’ve alwyas wanted to try it again.  Doing so alone in a city you don’t reside or even know anyone in would have been pretty risky, so in reality I probably wouldn’t have done it.  But maybe I would have.

I’d been reccomended visiting Navy Pier; a contact from my photoshoot the day before, a life-long Chicagoan, told me there was lots to do at Navy Pier, likening it to Pier 39 in San Francisco (which a life-long San Francisoan from my photoshoot at SFO reccomended I visit).  I was also recomended a few specific hot dog joints, but none of them were convenient to visit along my path. 

Arriving at Navy Pier, it was completely deserted - it was single-digits out after all.  It looked like the building itself was locked up to me, so it wasn’t until I’d walked halfway down the pier that I saw a small group come out some doors, showing me there actually was an interior I could get to (and more importantly, warmth!).  I warmed up and continued to the end of the pier to see what was at the end; all I found was a kids’ Santa Claus event - Navy Pier had been made out to me to be a lot more with a lot more going on than it actually was; during the Summer I’m sure that’s the case, but not in early December.

I stepped outside at the end of the pier just in time for sunset. 

Now that I knew there was an interior to Navy Pier, I backtracked in warmth, and found out there was a small mall section I’d completely missed.  Staying warm a few minutes longer, I got my first bag of Garrett Mix.

Ready to brave the cold again, I head back West to Michigan Avenue.  Given that I was cold and doing a lot of walking, I’d sworn off shopping this trip, but The Magnificent Mile is still a Chicago staple, nothing is stopping me from window shopping, and it was a direct route to the pizza shop I had planned this time around.   That, and I wanted to see the Christmas lights along Michigan Avenue; this was the Christmas parade route, after all.

Since night fell, and the Christmas lights were on, I went into full Kevin McCallister mode and set out hunting Christmas trees.  In doing so I passed The Wrigley Building, a huge Apple Store, and Tribune Tower, which has a fascinating history.

Finally, toward the North end of Michigan Avenue (and after a short trip through Water Tower Place), I hit the motherlode. 

What I didn’t realize until I turned the corner is what building I was standing in the shadow of.  I’d photographed it twice now already; Chicago’s iconic 875 North Michigan Avenue, more ubiquitously known by its former name, The John Hancock Center. 

Visiting this tower wasn’t part of the loose plan I’d assembled, but that’s the point of having a loose plan - unplanned fun.  Two months prior I’d gone up the 110 story tall Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower; the first and primary stop I had planned in my October jaunt downtown), but I found the view from the 100 story tall John Hancock Center more impressive.

And there is Navy Pier from 94 stories up; remember, I walked all the way from the end of that pier (and further to get there, actually; my only subway usage this jaunt was to get to downtown and to get back to my hotel in Rosemont). 

Far and away the dumbest thing I heard was while photographing the Eastern side; two girls, about my age, were also taking pictures on their phones, and upon rounding the corner to the East side one exclaimed, “Oh my God, something happened! Something’s wrong with the city!  This side of the city is has a complete blackout!”

You could hear she was scared; I didn’t say anything - I wanted to hear how deep this well of stupidity went.  The other girl was confused at first too, but took about 60 seconds to realize, and explain to the first girl that, “I think that’s the water.”

Without missing a beat, she replied, “but where are the lights?!” 

“I don’t think people live on the water.”

”But, shouldn’t there be boats?  What happened to the boats?  Look, everyone’s trying to get out of the city.” 

No folks; it’s Winter, and sunset was around 4.30 - it’s just rush hour on a Friday in Chicago. 

After that astonishing display of naivety, and walking the city all day with only light fare in my stomach, it was time to finish the last few blocks and hit my last planned stop: dinner at Lou Malnati’s.  I needed food, and I needed it quick, becuase my cue to leave John Hancock Center was a quickly forming migraine, and I didn’t have migraine meds with me downtown.  I was hoping food would stave it off, since I’m sure it was caused by dehydration and poor diet.

The pizza was fantastic, by the way. 

And to finish my day off, the food did nothing to slow the migraine, and after 45min waiting to get into Lou’s, an hour and a half eating, 15min waiting for the train, and an hour ride back to Rosemont, my migraine was way beyond any intervention.  It was the first migraine I’d had in over 2 months, and the worst migraine I had all year.

Day 4: Departure

I only managed about 2 hours of sleep; after at least 8 hours of excruciating pain in my pitch black hotel room, I managed to fall asleep, and woke up with the post-migraine haze I experience when the pain has passed, but I still have cognitive fog while the tail end of the migraine clears up. 

The killer headache the night before meant I hadn’t packed, so after a shower I rushed to fit what is usually a 1hr organized exercise into a 20min disorganized frenzy to pack and catch the hotel airport shuttle... hopefully.   Luckily I was right on time to catch it.  And although I was arriving to the airport a full hour later than I normally would prefer, I still had a half hour to safely get something to eat near my gate.  Among other things, I finally got my Chicago-style hot dog since I never got one the day before.

The snow-dusted Shenandoah mountains was a fitting sight to end my trip; I’d spotted snow flying over the Sierra Nevada mountain range on my return trip from San Francisco two months prior. 

Total Lunar Eclipse Supermoon - January 20th, 2019

Did you see tonight’s supermoon total lunar eclipse?  I braved the 4ºF wind chill and got you a few photos, and was reminded of the last eclipse I watched: the total solar eclipse, from Niota, Tennessee two years ago. Unfortunately I had some clouds start moving overhead during totality, and I couldn’t feel my fingers anyway, so I was happy to call it a night and warm back up.

If you’re interested in prints or wall art of my astrophotography, you can order by clicking here.