Our custom one-off book detailing our travels on 96 pages with 433 images is finished after nearly 2 solid weeks of work. “Travels Across America” features images from a few dozen of our travels from the year 2000 to 2004. Subsequent years will each receive their own volume. Caroline would like to see a book dedicated to Hawaii alone, hmmm, I don’t know if I’ll entertain her with that one, though. This 15″ x 11.5″ book (38cm x 30cm) is being printed by MyPublisher and should be at our doorstep by July 9th. The normal cost of the book with 20 pages being the standard size would have only been $59 but we opted for an extra 76 pages plus a color dust jacket over the hardcover and so our total with a promotional discount came in at $167 including shipping.

All day and all night, I work away on 433 images I selected from thousands taken from the years 2000 to 2004 of road trips and vacations Caroline and I had taken during that time. I had originally intended to take photos from 2000 to the present from 58 journeys that had been whittled down from over 150 trips. But the book we are printing these in only allows for a maximum of 100 pages and I was on page 96 by the end of 2004. It took more than a week to choose which images were going to be printed and three days to prepare them for publishing.

This Saturday, Caroline and I will embark on an exploratory vacation of the east coast of the United States. The itinerary for where our road trip will take us is worked out months in advance, the planning typically takes about 80 hours of research. Prior to leaving, we will have a detailed spreadsheet of the scenic byways, we will traverse, the hotels, motels, or a bed and breakfast we will overnight at. Activities such as botanical gardens, lighthouses, historic downtowns, national parks, monuments, and wildlife refuges are chosen. There’s a column listing the time for sunrise and one for sunset so we are sure to be out for first light and are well-positioned or finished eating in time for sunset. Miles between towns, villages, and cities are calculated to ensure we are not driving too many miles per day and have enough time to enjoy the view. Neither Caroline nor I have found the pleasure of sitting in one place, under the sun, sipping drinks for a week, our travels are nomadic and filled with a thousand wonderful sights. Just wait till you see what we will have seen on this journey.