Two Photographers One Route 66 - Dollface Foto
It all began in a smokey old pub in Bermondsey, London and this really, truly was the beginning of something so freaking special. So, here’s my story of how I ended up in Los Angeles CA, just before the entire world went crazy and decided to shut down! I was assisting my friend Gary Lashmar at his amazing DARE photography workshop (if your a photographer reading this, then please check out his dare workshops….it will revolutionise your photography!!). Mikell had travelled half way across the world to attend this (and I was in total admiration of this). I’ll be honest though, my first thoughts were that Mikell (Rebel Louise Photography) was a tad quiet and that she just kept herself to herself, so that was cool, because that’s just how she rolled….so I totally went with it. We exchanged a few words on the second day when she realised she’d forgotten her battery charger, and being a fellow Nikon user, I was only too happy to help out a gal in trouble (especially as we were swamped by Canon users - if you know you know - HA!!). Once the dust from the workshop had settled and Mikell had returned back home to Oregon, we started to bond over social media. Here we realised we actually had quite a lot in common. We both shared the same passion for photography, we both LOVE live music (especially a bit of grungy, arm pumping, air guitar ROCK n ROLL). We both also have children thrown into the mix and last of all….we both have an ENORMOUS streak for a bit of exciting & REBELLIOUS ADVENTURE….
…so, here’s where it begins.
DAY 1 LONDON - LOS ANGELES
I get super excited every time I chat to Mikell, and to be honest i’m not entirely sure how we went from dreaming up and fantasising about the perfect road trip to actually making it happen. A few days before Christmas 2019 I took a leap of faith, booked my flight and before I knew it, Bob’s your uncle, Fanny’s your aunt… I found myself in terminal 3 at London Heathrow and was checking in my tiny little weekend suitcase (yes, I travelled to the USA for 10 days with only cabin luggage). Flying out I couldn’t of had it much better!! Amazingly, I had a row of 3 seats all to myself, so I managed to stretch out, chill, watch films with no interference and consume far too many vino’s - before I knew it we were landing at LAX, Los Angeles, Cal-i-forn-i-a!!
It didn’t take me long to hook up with Mikell. After a few message exchanges, I found this luscious red head waiting for me in her beloved Starbucks (you will see this became a regular feature of our road trip!). The weather was a tad warmer than the cool winter air I had left behind in London, so I threw on my ‘BANS’ whilst we waited for the correct bus, then when it pulled up, we boarded the shuttle bus to take us to our hotel for the evening and continued chatting excitedly like 2 kids about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime. I was too darned excited to be tired, so we went down in the hotel restaurant, ordered pizza and chatted and chatted and chatted, but eventually the jet lag caught up with me and I just had to let my head hit the pillow. We had another flight to catch in the morning so I needed to recharge my batteries. We were heading to destination No 1 - Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The Start Of An Epic Journey
Let’s go and find Karen….
The awesome Mohave Desert as seen from our plane
Truly the most magnificent scenery
…..DAY 2 - LAX - ALBUQUERQUE
Sooooo, the plan was to not really have a plan and kinda just go with the flow. So that’s just how we rolled! The one thing we did both know was that we wanted to experience a true AMERICAN road trip by staying in locally owned hotels/motels and eat in local restaurants, and take pictures of people that totally captured our attention etc. The only solid plan we did have in place was to catch a flight from LAX to Albuquerque, New Mexico and collect our rental car. We also thought we would choose our lodgings daily so that we weren’t tied to any specific location. So, after we had checked out of our hotel for the night, we headed back to LAX and checked in for our flight to ALBUQUERQUE. After a 3 or 4 hour delay (I had no idea of the time, I’ll blame the jet lag for here!!) we finally boarded our plane and before we knew it we landing in New Mexico. TOTES EXCITING for these outta town gals! This was where we were to meet Karen ( as we later named her) for the first time. Karen was our rental car, and thanks to Alamo, they gave us a courteous upgrade. Karen was in her parking lot, all spangly shiny new….that new in fact that we had to remove the protective plastic from the mirrors. She was amazing to us, and in return we treated her like she was our own. She very quickly became one of the girls!!!
We drove ‘Karen’ around Albuquerque for a bit, but it wasn’t long before we both decided we were hungry and could do with a spot of lunch. We stumbled across this quirky little bakery/pizzeria. The guys in this place were so super helpful. They even gave us these amazing cinnamon flavoured cookies to try, so this place was an instant hit in my eyes. Here we ordered a couple of ciders and we took to the dusty terrace to work out where we were going to head towards to find our crash pad for the night. We knew we wanted to head downtown where there was a little more life, so this became our plan of action for the evening.
Once we got to downtown Albuquerque, we stumbled across this awesome retro looking motel called El Vado…..and OMG what a gem of a place we discovered. It was on Route 66 and ticked all the boxes for our ideal place to stay. The ambience was amazing, they had outside heaters blazing (it had turned quite chilly by the evening) and some live acoustic music playing….although I missed most of this as I needed to have a little nanny power nap (pesky jet lag again). I grabbed a couple of hours and ventured outside to find Mikell with a cheeky glass of vino, so who was I not to join her in this activity?
Probably our best little motel find of our road trip
Defo worth a visit
….DAY 3 - ALBUQUERQUE - GALLUP, NEW MEXICO
It was time to pack up our gear and head on to pastures new. We said goodbye to our quirky cortijos styled motel room and headed too Walgreens (America’s version of Tesco to all my fellow Brits) We decided we needed to stock up on provisions, you know, the essentials like pretzels and Pringles and put it all in the cooler I purchased (I love it, it has wheels!). We searched around for a bit to find Mikell her Starbucks (I very quickly learnt that she needed ‘good’ coffee to get her started in the mornings). We were heading out to visit the Sky City in the village of Acoma Pueblo. We excitedly made a few random stops to take photos and shit like that. We finally arrived at the Sky City only for it to be closing in 10 minutes time - GREAT!! We were allowed into the visitor centre and had a quick look around only for there to be a sign up saying ‘ABSOLUTELY NO CAMERAS ALLOWED TODAY’ say whattttt??? I couldn’t help myself so I rebelled just a little bit by taking a photo of the no photo sign. I didn’t let Mikell see me doing this because I know she would have had kittens as she didn’t want to piss the reservation police off. I would have loved to have got more images, but it wasn’t to be this time - Sorry - not sorry!
When you just can’t help yourself so you rebel by taking a photo of the no camera sign!!
Sorry….
This was as close as we could get to Sky City
Crappy mobile phone image!
We slipped back into Karen and she took us along snowy roads to a place called Gallop. We found this even more ‘retro’ than the night before, looking hotel called ‘El Rancho’ Motel and Hotel. This place was so traditionally American it was like stepping into a time warp from back in the seventies. In fact, I was expecting Burt Reynolds to walk across the hotel reception area complete with full-on cowboy gear. We settled into our very vintage room (Susan Hayward if I remember correctly). After navigating our way around the impeccably small bathroom with very vintage pink decor and yes…faux crystal taps (faucet), we ventured to the ‘49er bar/restaurant’. I don’t think the waitress could quite understand my quaint English accent, and certainly didn’t get my sense of humour….or maybe she was just lacking one herself? I’m not sure really, but I eventually ate my very 80’s club sandwich and washed it down with a couple of cocktails. Mikell and I chatted and talked so much exciting shit that we laughed and laughed and simply didn’t care that our food wasn’t quite Michelin star.
El Rancho Hotel, New Mexico
If you want to visit a blast from the past, then this place is a must!!
Karen didn’t have too much ‘junk in her trunk’
She looked good in El Rancho’s parking lot
….DAY 4 - GALLUP NM - PETRIEFIED FOREST, METEOR CRATOR, FLAGSTAFF ARIZONA
Yep, we packed a hell of a lot into this day. We started out by grabbing some breakfast in this traditional diner. I just have this real obsession about traditional American diners, especially if it was on the traditional Route 66. It didn’t fail to disappoint either, it had all the stereotypical cast inside, including their regular guys that sat at the bar. We got chatting to them, and it turned out I was the first to put a pin in the visitors map. You see, the owners had only just bought the place and were just taking over from the previous owners, so they put a new map of the world up, for when they got any ‘outta town’ visitors to pin where they had travelled from.
I must admit I was quite happy to let Mikell do all the route planning. We decided that we wanted to head to see the Petrified Forest (turns out its not a forest at all - who knew??) and then have a nosey at the meteor crater before ending the day in Flagstaff AZ. We stopped at a few random places to take photos, but OMG it was so bloody cold! At some points during the day it started to snow ( I found this weird as my perception of Arizona and New Mexico was that is was hot all year round - how wrong was I?)
We finally arrived at the National Park of the Petrified Forest (now here’s where I admit that I’d never actually heard of this place!) and to be honest I was really taken a-back by it. Its natural beauty was outstanding. We grabbed the cooler and headed to a picnic area to put ourselves a bit of lunch together. It wasn't long before Ace introduced himself by telling us what a crow was in native Navajo Indian. At first Mikell and I thought we’d stumbled across the kinda guy you walk across the road to avoid, but turns out he was the nicest guy and so knowledgeable about this area. Ace was one of the park rangers at the Petrified Forest, and I went on to walk down the bottom of the canyon with him, talking about England, sacred native Navajo lands, America and everything else in-between. This area was so, so stunning and I can’t recommend you visiting it enough. The colours in the layers of stone and desert were simply stunning. The air was so clear, the sky was so blue, it really was breathtaking. It was here where we laughed about something I said, and it later became our ‘holiday saying’.
After we had visited the Petrified Forest and said our goodbyes to ACE, we headed to the Meteor Crater near Winslow, Arizona. This was quite a sight, seeing as it was literally a massive hole in the ground. Its amazing to think that all those thousands of years ago, a massive rock from space hit the earth and caused such colossal damage. Once we had done with this place we got back into Karen and headed towards the highway, but the sky was so moody and stormy, and the golden hour of light was too delicious to not stop and fire a few frames off…so that’s what we did.
FLAGSTAFF……now, our adventures in Flagstaff deserves a blog in its own right!! But we’re not going to do that just yet, and we’re on this blog so I’ll give you the shortened version. So, basically we arrived in to Flagstaff after dark and saw this retro looking neon sign in the downtown area, so naturally we headed towards it. The hotel Monte Vista had vacancies - whoop whoop, so we paid for our room and ventured on up to it…..10 minutes later we checked back out!! The room was painted black and full of gold antique accessories, but something else was totally creeping me out. I felt this really uneasy vibe in there. I felt this weird sensation in the tiny elevator, and even weirder in the room. Mikell asked me pass her the WIFI code which was in the hotel info book…..it was in here where I found a flyer and my freaky arse feelings were confirmed. IT WAS HAUNTED TO HELL!!! Mikell was trying to persuade me that it’ll be fine, whilst googling the hotel. It turns out it was one of the most haunted places in Arizona, in fact the whole of the USA. Mikell and I decided to give this hotel a miss, and we checked out with no problems. We found a new hotel (Residence Inn) a couple of blocks away which was a new build, chain hotel, only minus the spooks! We found a nice place to have some food. I believe it was called The Lumberyard Brewing Company….here we sank some cocktails, ate our dinner (standard chicken for me and fish for Mikell for a change), and laughed about what had just happened.
….Day 5 - FLAGSTAFF - PHOENIX
Im not going to lie…..I had a good nights sleep in our spook-less hotel (Residence Inn, Flagstaff) and I didn’t care that we paid more for it and the view of the mountains from the window in our room was really stunning. Whilst we were having breakfast in the hotel lobby, Mikell was planning our day ahead, whilst sipping on her obligatory morning coffee. On the agenda was ‘The Grand Canyon’. Neither Mikell or I had ever been there, so this was quite exciting for both of us. Its not how I imagined it to be, but it was still breath taking nether less. You enter the park and choose to drive either left or right. You follow the trees and BAM, there it is in all its glory. There were lots of incredibly tame elk about the place which made me laugh. We found a spot where we had a picnic, walked around the edge (which freaked Mikell out a tad) and took lots of pictures. This is one of those places that I wished we could have spent longer at. I would have loved to explore the rivers there and maybe go down into the canyon, but we were pressed for time so it wasn’t to be this time.
Once we had seen what we needed to see at the Grand Canyon, we turned Karen around and headed for Phoenix. We wanted to see some Saguaro Cacti and visit Joshua Tree so we came off of Route 66. Whilst on our journey we passed a little white looking church, so of course we are ever curious and pulled over to have look at it. What I found inside was not what I was expecting!
It was a shrine to the king himself - Elvis Freaking Presley …..ah huh huh! Elvis has not left the building!!
So, we carried on heading for Phoenix. We found a motel type place but it didn’t exactly set the world alight, although I did get quite excited by the fact there was a laundry area where I could wash and dry my clothes. We headed into the downtown area of Phoenix but I felt it lacked VA VA VOOM. We were struggling to find something that was locally owned, so we opted for a chain chinese restaurant called PF Changs (I kept wanting to call it Charlie Changs….If you’re from Essex UK your’ll know exactly what I’m talking about). I found this really weird because here in the UK, most chinese restaurants are independently owned. It was actually really nice, but not very busy. the cocktails were lovely, and went down a treat, so much so that we ended up being the last customers in there and the staff were waiting for us to finish so they could go home.
….Day 6 - PHOENIX, ARIZONA - JOSHUA TREE, CALIFORNIA
Turns out Mikell used to live in Arizona, so we took a trip down memory lane. I think she was very underwhelmed seeing her old house. Mikell said the only difference was that the trees that she had planted had grown loads. Once we got out from the city we headed to Superstition Mountain which was really lovely. We then headed deeper into the hills and meandered around the roads, finally to arrive at a lake. We couldn’t get out as the lake area was closed, but it was very nice to see. We pressed on to Joshua Tree….this was a long journey. Much longer than both of us had anticipated, but we played music from Mikell’s play lists and generally chatted some more (because we hadn’t already chatted enough!). We decided to take a break from the hotel/motel routine and hired an old 70’s Airstream. Before we knew it the sun was starting to set and the roads were getting dustier and narrower. Google maps was doing its thing trying to get us to our AIR BNB, but it was so poorly marked that we struggled to find it. Eventually, after a dozen wrong turns and an emergency driving glasses situation, we found our silver sleep bullet. Once we got settled into the Airstream, we decided it was feeding time, so we took the advice of the host and headed to an old fashioned saloon bar. This place was BUZZING, they had karaoke playing and it was full of cowboys and cowgirls….now this was what I came to see. We had our dinner, ( burger for Mikell and Chicken strips for me - this became our standard order). The vodka’s flowed that night. Mikell got up on to the stage and started to shake her thang whilst some total stranger was singing ‘I like big butts’. It didn’t take long or too many vodkas more for me to get up on stage and belt out ‘Sweet Dreams’ . Sorry, Annie Lennox…..I didn’t do you proud that night, but I enjoyed it all the same.
Before we knew it, the bar was kicking us out and we ended up in a Circle K to get some post drink nibbles, just just before we got there we started talking this group of friends from Joshua Tree (it think it’s fair to say they were pretty wasted). In Circle K, we met this lady who told us she was a wicker woman and told Mikell that she was one too. Neither of us had a clue what this was so we later googled it, but for the time being we went along with it. She was actually really interesting, telling us that Flagstaff was a portal for spirits and all kinds of crazy shit going on there, and that she was glad that we were out of there. Who knew - my spidey senses were right!!
I loved that we were staying in the airstream, but OMG it was cold. Now I knew it got cold in the desert at night, but I didn’t realise just how ccccccold it got. We put what we thought was the heater on, but to say it was useless and didn’t work was an understatement. It was blowing cold air into the already cold Airstream. We didn’t sleep well that night, even with 4 blankets and duvets on us, we were absolutely bloody FREEZING. The only blessing was that we woke up to daylight and finally could see our magnificently beautiful surroundings. We also found the heater about an hour before we left to venture to pastures new!! We both embraced the outside shower, avoided the rattle snakes, tarantulas and mice(the latter 2 didn’t bother me, but I kinda had an issue with the snake!), and got dressed and ready for the day ahead, in our newly heated Airstream. So…..moving on to ….
….DAY 7 - JOSHUA TREE - PALM SPRINGS, CALIFORNIA
We headed out to find Mikell’s morning ritual of ‘finding a decent coffee’ and picked up some more groceries. Turns out the Starbucks in Joshua Tree had just opened that day and was really busy….and to Mikell’s HORROR, they forgot the cream in her coffee. She was not impressed, and I was glad I don’t drink coffee!! After we had calmed down over coffee-gate we headed for Joshua Tree National Park.
THIS PLACE WAS AWESOME.
The rocks, the colours the vegetation - it was all so kooky…..and I couldn’t have loved it more. This is definitely one of those places that I will be returning to - without a doubt. I think I was so caught up with the ambience of the place that I didn’t take no where near as many pictures as I would have liked to have taken. Hey ho….thats just how it goes sometimes?
Once we had absorbed all we could in Joshua Tree National Park, we wanted to find Thousand Palms Oasis. We followed the signs, saw a load of palm trees, pulled over and started to walk towards (whilst avoiding more rattlesnakes) said palm trees. We later on found out that we had not seen Thousand Palms Oasis. Never mind, the place we walked to was pretty cool.
After our little hike to see some random palm trees, we returned to Karen and headed into Palm Springs. The only thing I can say about Palm Springs is that its a great place for nostalgia…..and a bloody huge mountain in front of the town. For somewhere i’ve most definitely heard of, I was surprised at how small it was. We found a very retro looking diner (Ruby’s Diner), so we stopped for dinner (we both had our staples, me chicken strips and Mikell a burger). Once we had finished our food we walked outside to discover there was a pop up market (street fair) appeared. But, we were both so tired that we just wanted to find a place where we could go and rest for the evening. We found this hotel which was perfect for the geriatric traveller, after much searching on AirBnB ,Booking.com and Expedia.com. These 3 websites had become our usual haunts to find our places to stay. Both Mikell and I were soooo tired that all we both wanted to do was get our heads down and go to sleep. Neither of us took a lot of rocking this night, and it was obvious the constant travelling was finally starting to catch up with us both. Palm Springs was a bit of a pit stop for us, we were originally going to head straight to LA, but i’m glad we did stop, even if we didn’t see much of this place.
…DAY 8 - PALM SPRINGS - WEST HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA
HAPPY FRICKING VALENTINES DAY - yes, you’ve guessed it, it was Feb 14. After having a lazy slow start, we checked out of our geriatric hotel and headed to HOLLYWOOD. We had another day trawling all of the hotel sites looking for a place to stay that wouldn’t rely on a mortgage to pay for the night. We spent quite a lot of time driving about and Mikell started to get a little twitchy, which was fair enough. After blowing Mikell’s mind about the origins of Def Leopard and Lemmy and other famous rock star Brits, we finally found this hotel called the Grafton on Sunset Boulevard. Turns out it was a really nice place to stay. There was a slight mix up with our reservation, so we had to wait in the small bar whilst it got resolved. We got chatting to the bar tender and she made a mean cocktail as well as some awesome jewellery.
Mikell knew of my love for GnR and there happened to be a cover band playing at the ‘Whisky a Go Go’ . She had booked us ticked a few nights previous which was really exciting. Our hotel was not far from the venue and we saw some other famous places on the way. We passed the Viper room, and had dinner and pre-drinks in the Rainbow bar. We watched the warm up acts and drank vodka, and then a little more….by the time Hollywood roses were on we were ready to ROCK AND ROLL. We clicked and we clicked and we jumped up and down until we couldn’t anymore in the ‘Whisky’…and then we did it all over again!
…DAY 9 - HOLLYWOOD - SANTA MONICA PIER, VENICE BEACH, CALIFORNIA
HOLLYWOOD - This is somewhere I’ve always wanted to go and visit….and I can now say I’ve done it!! I was hoping to have done more street photography here, but the truth is that it was just so damned touristy and really not what I was expecting. The walk of fame was pretty much what it said on the tin. To be honest we didn’t stay there for very long, an hour maybe? But, I did manage to capture a few good frames. I think if i’d been more present at the time I would have gotten more out of it…but the guys in their spiderman suits were pretty funny so that made me laugh.
Back in Karen, we headed towards Santa Monica pier where Route 66 ends. It was a nightmare finding somewhere to park, like, we spent about an hour just trying to park and about 45 mins just trying to get out from there! Its fair to say, that neither Mikell or I were that excited about this part. It was nice and all, but I could go to Brighton pier and have the same experience….and $10 for one ride on the Ferris wheel - such a rip off. I was fast running out of money so was watching every penny (which is so not like me, but I was having to fund this trip by myself and not curtesy of the bank of Colin!!).
After we had escaped from the parking lot we headed towards Venice Beach. This more on our wavelength. Full of quirky beachy characters, dancing around a drum circle probably off their nut!! But I loved it all the same. It was full of beach front restaurants, little gift shops, skaters, families, tourists, market stalls selling, handmade jewellery, palm readers and….lots and lots of homeless people. I was really shocked at how bad the problem was there. It was highlighted even more so once the sun went down as one by one, the tents started to pop up. All along the beachfront for miles, there were line upon lines of tents. So very sad.
Just before the sun set for our last night in California, we found a nice beach bar/restaurant and had a ‘last supper’. We were joined by this really cute dog who’s owner was in the book store next to us. It was really busy and soon we felt sorry for the waitresses. Turns out there were a bunch of teenagers sitting in front of us who had eaten a load of food and then did a bunk, what utter shitbags - We ventured back into Karen for one last trip back to our hotel for the evening, passing the constant line of homeless peoples tents. We’d asked the waitress to box up our leftover food so that we could pass it on to someone deserving. (I hate waste at the best of times, and this is something I do a lot at home). Upon arrival to our motel, we emptied Karen off all rubbish and then went to the room to packour bags in preparation for our departures the next day. I emptied the cooler, filled it up with some things I had acquired throughout our trip (mainly jolly ranchers for the kids and a few cans of root beer because we can’t get them easily here in the UK) I taped it up firmly ready for it to be placed into the hold the next day. I was sad that our trip had come to an end, but at the same time it was truly magnificent that we were able to reflect on what we had accomplished. Seriously, how many people can say they have driven half way across America with a friend from over the pond? Cool eh?
…DAY 10 - LAX - LONDON
So the day had come where we had to say goodbye to Karen and then to each other. We put our bags into Karen for one last time and headed to our final destination with her - LAX. We put ourselves onto the shuttle bus and headed towards the airport. As we approached my stop Mikell started to get a little EMOSH, and it didn’t take long to set me off too, only for us to realise that my stop was another 2 stops away….so we had a couple more minutes of saying ‘I Love You’s’ and thanks you’s etc. As I stepped off the bus I waved goodbye to Mikell only to quickly see that the original stop was my actual stop and the crazy arsed driver didn’t have a Scooby what he was on about!! It didn’t take me long to walk back to terminal 3, or at least it didn’t seem to take long as I spent the whole time grinning like a Cheshire Cat about my most excellent adventure that I had just had. If i’m being totally honest though, I was looking forward to my long flight so I could sit and watch some films and literally do nothing for 10/11 hours. I was also looking forward to seeing the children and Colin, and I’m pretty sure they were looking forward to having me back home. It’s only when you spend a longer amount of time away from your family and friends that you realise how should cherish every living moment. Life is most definitely for living!!
Some of the memories that I smiled a bout were the ones where Mikell tried her hardest to perfect her best English accent, but sounded like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins EVERY.SINGLE.TIME. But, I loved her for this and it made me laugh EVERY.SINGLE.TIME. I was no better though. I tried my hardest to crack my American accent, but alas, I also failed miserably because apparently I sounded like I was a cowboy from southern Texas , especially when I said there is a lot of sandstone around here. This was a ‘you needed to kind of be there’ kinda moment. It quickly became our phrase of the road trip. We laughed every time it was said and even to this day I send Mikell little voicemails with this phrase on it. We quickly learned to live with each others quirk-isms. I've got too many to mention and turns out Mikell doesn't become Mikell until she's had her morning shot of coffee. We ate so much crap too, although we ‘tried to eat healthy’ the Pringles and pretzels tasted so dammed good. Seriously, when you’re tired and in a hotel room you just need a quick sugar or salt fix, and BOOM - you’re good to go for another hour or so (I can see my trainer shaking his head at this already, sorry James). She's also the worst car passenger, but we’ll let that go as she suffers with anxiety in the car. I think I deserve a Pat on the back for adapting to drive in not only another country on the wrong side of the road, but also dealing with Mikell's in car anxiety's. Just as well as I'm confident driver and have driven on that side of the road plenty of times. I like to push boundaries where as Mikell doesn't, she's also very safety conscious where as I am a little less worried about taking risks in life. I'm probably a lot more stubborn than Mikell too, like the time it was getting dark and both the arms had broken off my glasses. During the day this wasn't a problem as I wedged them firmly on behind my sunglasses but this one particular day when I was doing some driving, it started to get dark. I needed to adapt and quickly because Mikell was getting twitchy and the light was going fast. Mikell kept offering to drive but being the stubborn old mule I am, I wanted to carry on. I stopped the car, popped the boot (trunk) open and reached for my mini medical bag. I knew there was some medical tape in there so I thought this would be perfect to stick the glasses to my face. At first Mikell wondered what the hell I was doing but she soon got the idea and it wasn't long before we fell about laughing again. OH MY DAYS that was a funny moment. It was even funnier the next day when we arrived at Joshua national tree National Park and I had my taped glasses on and pulled up at the booth to pay for our entrance, only to be greeted by this really handsome, stereotypical Californian park Ranger. The only thing I could do about that was laugh because I looked like a real douche bag and the ground wasn't going to swallow me up that day! Mikell is also super organised and I’m, ermmmmm, not. She had made loads of awesome playlists on Spotify for us to listen to during our journeys which was great, I on the other hand am a ‘plug my phone into the car and see what is playing’ kind of girl. But neither of us judged each other for our ways and that was a really beautiful thing.
Thank you Mikell for coming into my life, you have made it a much brighter place to be. Thank you for being the one who I got to share our most excellent adventure with. Thank you for taking the time to get to know me even more so, and for trusting me to spend time with you. I love you for just being you, never stop swishing that marvellous head of red hair around, don't ever stop the coffee and never quit being the most adorable person ….
…..so, where's the next stop lady??
Until the next ADVENTURE
Stay safe, stay well and be kind
If you would like to read Mikell’s version of events then please click on the link below
www.rebellouiseblog.com/2020/03/11/sarah-mikells-excellent-adventure
If you would like to find out more about ‘The Dare Photography Workshops’ check out www.marshalgrayphotography.com