Alice Roadtrip 2013

5AM lightning storm finally subsiding

Welcome new visitors! I just wanted to write a short summary of what adventures Alice will be setting out on this year, and give some background for new followers.

Over the past 4 summers, I have traveled around the country in this 1964 aluminum Avion trailer. She is named after Alice Ramsey, the first woman to drive across the US in 1909. We left on out first trip on the 100 year anniversary, and it have proved to be a lucky name. During our travels, I began photographing Alice as a stand-in for the nuclear-family-on-vacation she was originally built for. Here is Alice at a scenic vista or the Grand Canyon or at an once cream factory. She also stands in as an object of desire, a referent to the nostalgia we have for what-could-be or might-have-been. 

The first summer was an ambitiously long trip, covering a broad area of the country but slightly more focused on the West and Southwest. We stuck to blue highways over interstates whenever possible. The most famous roads were Route 66 and the Pacific Coast Highway. Beautiful, exciting roads if you have the time to take them. The next two summers (2010-11) were mainly the central and northern sections of the Midwest. Last summer, 2012, was mainly spent in the Rockies. 

Whew, that was 15000 miles. Now for this summer, our most ambitious trip yet. I expect to cover 22 states in the south and the east, including trying to drive in Manhattan and to the tip of Key West. I'll be using Facebook this summer to solicit insight into local scenes and give brief updates along the way. Posts here should still happen many times a week, but for play-by-play, I'm using the FB (I used to use Twitter for this but it was more tricky to update photos). 

I welcome you to follow our journey over the next two months. Our first destination will be Benton Harbor, Michigan, where Avion trailers were born.