On Destination Nowhere

If you are a reader of my photoblog (anappleadayphoto.blogspot.com), you may have noticed my daily (for three days now) series entitled "Destination: Nowhere". The series is not for a class and for nothing but my own want to get out and photograph.

The idea for the project came on Sunday- when I spontaneously went for a drive, and happened to have my camera and tripod with me (a rare happening, as I usually forget my camera and never use a tripod). A drive that started as an exploration session on route 15, turned into a two hour drive, past a lake I had never seen, a restaurant I want to further explore, and to a gamelands parking spot, where I decided to turn around. Upon pulling into the gamelands, I really felt the need to go photograph, photograph myself, and photograph what I found. After fifteen minutes of shooting, I drove home, feeling that for once, my drive to nowhere was productive.

So this got me thinking: why not purposely go on drives for the rest of the week, driving for as long or as short as I wished, to an unknown location. I'm trying to go at different points of the day each day, to challenge myself with different kinds of light. Sometimes friends come along, sometimes I'm alone. But I'm looking forward to see where the rest of the week will take me, and if I decide to stretch the project farther.

So here I am,at the same place I was last year. A place where I have come after months of patience and longing.

I get the opportunity to ride my bike again.

I remember exactly 364 days ago that I rode my bike to 189, participated in one of the first Ice Cream O'Clocks ever, and bikeroad in the tunnels with Eric, Brendan, and Jake. It was two in the morning, and having eaten a Sundae made by Matthew Marsh (with more chocolate syrup than ice cream), I was now experiencing my first ever (yes) sugar high. The chains on my bike were rusted and didn't stop reminding me of that fact, but I was out of my room, not trudging through the snow, but rather on one of my first ever adventures at RIT.

364 days later, I keep my adventures into neatly categorized piles, own two bikes, and have one goal that I have recently set out to complete: to find all of my friends bikes as nice as the one I bought last week (my gorgeous schwinn sprint- 27 inches of delicious blue roadbike). Last night Kirsten, Moses, and I drove to snatch three bikes up- had a little trouble getting there, but once we were at the old farmhouse, populated by a man, his memories, and 30-some bikes, proceeded to buy three jet-black road bikes (one for kirsten, moses, and brendan).

Many things have changed in my life- I'm a much tougher person, have learned to trust in the Lord much more, and have seen much in the past year. But I'm still the girl who wakes up on a warm morning with sunlight wrapped around her shoulders, excited that this will be the rare day that she can bike (and sing) to class.

I bought a whole bunch of sunflowers today.

It is funny how they put me in such a good mood.

I've got to stop relying on other people to make me happy.