• Left – 1:30am
• Returned – 9:30pm
• Trains taken – 5:05am Virginia Railway Express, Orange & Red Metro Lines, 2:30pm Amtrak
• Capitol Police Officers asked for directions – 5
• Metal detectors entered – 2, 4 times each
• Subsequent wand searches – 2
• Pizzas eaten from the π: truck – 1
• Geocaches found – 11
• Protestors seen – 3
• Museums visited – 1
• Miles walked – between 10 & 1,000,000
• Hours without sleep – 36

How did it get here? Who drove it off the show room floor? Where had it traveled over the course of its life? What stories could it tell if it could speak? Imagine the meals eaten, arguments engaged, love made, trips taken, close calls had, dreams imagined inside this rolling metal box?

I’m sure if it had been spring or summer the snakes and critters would have kept me at bay, but even though it was 64 degrees on this final day of January, nothing stirred in the woods except my heart.

54 years ago someone had huge hopes for this pristine mechanical machine. She was the apple of someone’s eye. I can only imagine how many times someone washed her, rubbed down her interior, tinkered with her engine, and polished her chrome. Today, she’s scrap metal hidden deep in the woods never to run again. I empathize with her. This could very easily be me. Except for the 54 year old part, though truth is that’s not too far off either.

By the way, I found the cache I was in search of in an old rusty toolbox in the trunk.

Ever bought a used car from a slick salesman with bad hair wearing a leisure suit? Ever ordered a K-tel Ron-co gadget-a-matic off an infomercial for $19.95 only to receive an already broken piece of junk worth about eighty-five cents?

Ever looked at a menu and ordered something on the basis of the picture only to have the real thing resemble a plate of Alpo when it arrives at your table? There is nothing worse than getting ripped off.

I still remember ordering a “real” 35mm camera off the back page of a Fantastic Four comic book in 1974. Finally a “real” camera to replace my JC Penny Instamatic 110. Finally I would be able to take pictures like I saw in magazines. Who knows, maybe Hot Rod or National Geographic or Road & Track would hire me as a staff photographer. Never mind the fact that I was only ten years old at the time. I was about to be the proud owner of a genuine 35mm camera for the measly sum of only $2.95 plus postage and handling.

So off went the envelope with my life savings in it. And after what seemed like an eternity, the big day arrived. The postman delivered a partially smashed brown cardboard box with my name on it. It had been shipped from the exotic port of some place called New Jersey. I didn’t have a clue where that was but I reasoned it had to be some place foreign.

I retreated to my room and quickly tore open the already torn open box. Finally, after my multi-month wait, I held in my hands my first 35mm camera. I held in my hands a piece of black plastic weighing in at a whopping six ounces. I’d held Kleenex that weighed more than this camera.

The camera body was plastic. The knobs, cranks, and rings were plastic. The film spool and the strap were, you guessed it, plastic.

And the lens? The professional high quality piece of optical glass? My ticket to running with big dogs like Ansel Adams, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Jerry Uelsmann? It was plastic. Cheap plastic. The kind of plastic the little green army men we scorched with magnifying glasses on sunny summer days were made of.

How could this be? Surely this was some kind of mistake? MY camera must have gotten switched at the factory. Or maybe the post office placed my label on someone else’s box.

I don’t remember if it was my Dad or my Mom who explained to me that day that I’d just been ripped off, the victim of a comic book cover advertisement. All I know is that from that point on every comic book I bought was read with suspicion, especially the advertisements.

And my $2.95 plus postage and handing? Let’s just say it was a small price to pay for a big lesson learned.

I love the artistic, creative, and journalistic nuances of photography. The hardware, the necessary technical expertise, the manipulation of light, and the ability to freeze a slice of time, all appeal to me like little else.

There is a photo that we each carry around with us over the course of our lives. It is a picture over which we have little control, little say-so, little input. Yet it is a snapshot of ourselves which we usually disdain and keep hidden from public view

It is a picture you have with you right now, in your wallet or your purse. It is your driver’s license photo. And it is a BAD picture. Wouldn’t it be grand if the DMV would allow us to supply our own photograph? One would think after taking hundreds of millions of driver’s license photos the DMV would eventually take a good one. Nope.

The past few years the photo on my driver’s license made it look like I was completely stoned. I wasn’t, mind you, but I couldn’t prove it by this photo. I was so happy when it came time to renew my license. I couldn’t wait to get rid of that picture.

I get to carry my new driver’s license picture around with me until the year 2017. And fortunately, I no longer look stoned. I now look like a complete psychopath.