I love looking around the attic in the home that I grew up in. It brings me back to another time. Dusty old sports trophies, boxes of baseball cards, abandoned board games, and stacks upon stacks of old photo albums. Over the holidays, I was digging around and I came across a box in the attic marked "Road Trip". It was filled with old Kodachrome color negative slides that my mom and dad had shot over 40 years ago. I felt like I had found a secret treasure.

In 1978, my parents embarked on a 2-month long road trip across the western United States. They traveled in a Chevy camper van. They bathed in rivers and rest stop bathrooms. They didn’t have a plan other than to roam around and see where the road might take them. They spent a lot of time in National Parks. They documented their trip with over 200 images that they shot on film along the way. Growing up, I had heard stories and caught glimpses of old photos from this trip. I knew it was important by the way they spoke of it. I grew to hold the idea of a cross-country road trip in high admiration: the complete freedom to go where you please. They came home from this trip and shortly after started a family. The 2-month road trip helped them close out one chapter of their lives, and helped usher in a new one.

When I started going through these slides, I got really excited about what I had found. Not only was this a glimpse into my parent’s lives before they had children, but there were a lot of very beautifully composed photographs that they had shot. I will always revisit and shuffle through these pictures with excitement. I'm so thankful that my parents documented this moment in time for themselves, but even more, I'm thankful that they did this for me and my siblings.