Life like one big road

I'm currently working on a handstitched project for photography class, wherein I'm retracing my road trip from Thunder Bay, to Chilliwack, and to Masset... and back again. I've made that road trip several times now, not always with Masset at the beginning or the end, but I've traveled many a kilometer through the prairies, the mountains, and the forests.

Stitching this project has been very time consuming, but as I'm stitching, I find myself remembering all those road trips. From the last time, when Brad and I made the trip from Thunder Bay to Chilliwack in the span of two days, sleeping in a super packed van with the stuff in the back pushing our seats forward at uncomfortable angles... to the many road trips we made when I was a kid, camping through B.C. and visiting Vancouver Island. My first trip from Chilliwack to Prince George, to Prince Rupert and then to Masset was pretty crazy. From Prince George onwards, my cousin Melissa drove us -- four plus a cat crammed in the cab of our trusty 4x4 "Pearl", 26 hours straight, from the ferry at Prince Rupert where she didn't sleep a wink, onto Haida Gwaii and all the way to Masset, where she pretty much crashed.

From the moment I set eyes on the Queen Charlotte Islands, I fell in love. I can't describe to you properly the scenery, the ocean, the forest, the people... finding little agates on the beach, seeing groups of eagles flying over houses, the pastel colours of all the little houses all lined in a row, playful ravens hopping next to you as you walk along. I think I left a little piece of my heart behind there, somewhere still, it wanders beside the tides and offroads along North Beach.

That is kind of the soul of roadtripping though, of travel. You leave little parts of yourself behind, and pick up new little parts along the way. And someday, you make it to the place you want to stop for awhile, or maybe just someone you want to stop with.

Here are just a very small handful of some of my traveling pictures.