Travels 2020-2021

As I am writing this in June of 2022, I am just getting over (hopefully) my first experience contracting Covid-19. I am grateful to have only caught it now, after having two doses of the vaccine a booster. I am glad that it was not so severe that I couldn’t do anything, like put these photos from the last couple of years, beginning in January 2020 to December of 2021. Of course, I am really just lucky I had a job that I could do remotely and is not, in any day to day respect, essential. And I didn’t live with anyone at that time who was an essential worker, further reducing my chance of contracting covid. Lastly, I am lucky to have had easy access to the vaccine (thanks Silver City, New Mexico Wal-Mart!). All these factors, largely out of my control, gave me the ability to spend a lot of time in the last couple years travelling and spending a lot of time outdoors. I feel guilty about it because I don’t feel I earned these experiences, especially when so many people these last couple years have been suffering from this disease, from other diseases, depression, racism, severe weather due to climate change. It’s never a complete list. I admit that I felt really frustrated when I caught Covid because I felt I was missing out. But putting these pictures together has really made me realize I fortunate I am. It’ therapy. In a sense, photography has always been a kind of therapy for me, a way reflect on some present moment or scene—fleeting by nature—and being grateful for it.

Clingmans Dome Observation Tower, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee and North Carolina, 2021
My last big trip before heading back west in 2021 was to Great Smokey Mountains National Park for a five-day backpacking trip. On the way I shot some more popular view points; this is, after all, the most visited national park in the country to my knowledge. The views her are great, but I found the brutalist architecture interesting for how out of place it seemed.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee, 2021
Potters Creek, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee, 2021
Ownby Cemetery, Potters Creek, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee, 2021
Potters Creek Trail, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee, 2021
Potters Creek Trail, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee, 2021
The Little River, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee, 2021
After checking out a couple day hikes, I left on a 5 day backpacking loop through the Smoky Mountains. I started heading up the Little River.
Appalachian Trail, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee, 2021
Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina and Tennessee, 2021
I love the spooky mood of this shot.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina, 2021
Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina and Tennessee, 2021
Some of the greatest sunset I have seen are right off the Appalachian Trail in North Carolina and Tennessee.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina and Tennessee, 2021
Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina and Tennessee, 2021
A November frost gave beautiful definition to the now-bare trees, a prologue to winter.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina and Tennessee, 2021
Jake's Creek, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee, 2021
Roadside Trees, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee, 2021
Zeus in his New House, Terra Alta, West Virginia, 2021
Before heading back west I went north to visit friends. This was Zeus's new house in Terra Alta, West Virginia.
Mural, Oakland, Maryland, 2021
I am not sure what's going on here, but maybe Einstein went fishing in Oakland Maryland?
Benjamin Franklin Bridge and Delaware River, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2021
The Benjamin Franklin Bridge connects Philadelphia to Delaware across the Delaware River. This is one of my favorite shots in this set.
Kids Playing Football in an Alley, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2021
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2021

Nat

Krancus

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Travels 2020-2021