In any case, we live in different times, by different standards, and we have different hopes for our children. They will learn to be afraid of Everything, which is pitiful. Life in the Fourth Reich will not be easy, for most of them. They will ride fast motorcycles and have a lot of sex, and that will be just about it.

-Hunter S. Thompson, Foreword to Boys on the Bus

Coral

After an uneventful, relatively comfortable, 10 hour flight with Continental (my only complaint being their choice of meal times which left room for improvement), we arrived in Houston, Texas. Encounters with US immigration officials, often unfriendly and occasionally borderline xenophobic, are not something I typically enjoy. This trip was a pleasant exception. “What’s in Natchez!?” he asked cheerily, clearly perplexed as to why tourists would arrive in Texas only to head to a tiny town in Mississippi. “My sister,” explained my dad, to which Romina added, “and not much else.”

Starfish

So far most of the holiday has been spent travelling. It took a six hour drive to get to Natchez, followed by one and a half to get to Baton Rouge. And the road trip to Tennessee is still ahead of us. In between, I spent a while photographing the beautiful coral tanks my uncle and aunt have spent months building up and maintaining since my last visit, along with the dogs. There’s small gallery below. I’m certainly getting comfortable with the 50mm lens now and the plan is to shoot most of this trip with it, after which I’ll go back to alternating generally between it and the 28-135mm.

While Twitterage will likely be limited, I’ll aim for a continuous stream of short posts (ideally with photos) here since I’m unlikely to have time for anything longer or more in-depth until I return.