202203-- Road Trip, Utah and New Mexico

Visitors 33

80 photos

In March 2022, after being couped up indoors for several months due to Covid protocols, I decided to take a two week road trip to photograph parts of Southwestern United States. Additionaly, there were four principal objectives of this road trip:

1. To explore, hike and photograph in several National and State Parks located in Utah--including Arches and Canyonland National Parks, Dead Horse Point State Park and Monument Valley on Navajo Indian lands.

2. To stay in, and photograph, two recently restored historic Hotels around Amtrak Train tracks--namely Posada Inn in Winslow, Arizona and Castenada Hotel adjoining Las Vegas, New Mexico, Amtrak Stations.

3. To explore and photograph several truck stops frequented by a growing number of Sikh long haul Truck Drivers in the US (about 80K by some estimates) who cherish the availabaility of authentic Punjabi Indian Food at eateries (Punjabi Dhabas) at these truck stops (over 20 such Dhabas exist on major highways throughout the US.

4. Last, but not the least, I wanted to explore the photograhic capabilities of my new iPhone-13 pro, as a potential replacement for my heavy DSLR cameras gear along with several speciality lenses.

It was a wonderful road trip where I met all the above objectives. I was truly overwhelmed with the fantastic natural beauty of the parks which I explored mostly through hiking and photography.

I visited and photographed at Punjabi Dhaba eateries located at two Truck stops along I-40, one in Kingman, AZ and the other in Grants, New Mexico. I felt that these Dhabas provided a much needed relief and a sense of "back home" to these longhaul truck drivers. These establishments had Punjabi music and Indian movies on the wall hung TVs, In addition, the cooks were generally ladies in the kitchen wearing traditional "Salwaar Kameez" clothing - just like aunts back home in Punjab--thus providing these truckers a real opportunity to indulge in Punjabi gossip while picking up their meals to take on the road.

All the displayed images in this gallery were taken with the I-Phone 13 Pro camera in Raw format and then moderately edited in Lightroom and/or photoshop to improving clarity and contrast.