Roadtripping with the CMac

You couldn’t ask for a better travel companion than Colin MacKenzie. His instincts are always dead on. For instance, he’s rejected our 16 oz. aluminum coffee mugs on the grounds they’re ‘not big enough’. That decision alone has raised our average highway speed to 85 mph.



Colin never gets tired. His enthusiasm never wanes. When you’ve been driving for four hours, and a blizzard hits, and then you see ostriches in a pen at the side of the road he shouts, “Ostriches in the snow! Let’s go shoot those ostriches in the snow!”
By shoot, Colin means video. Or photograph.
But if you set your mouth into a grumpy line, Colin doesn’t push the point. He just glances once, longingly, in the rearview mirror as the ostrich opportunity slips into memory.

Colin is a shooter: That means experience and documenting experience have a powerful synergy.

I’ve always had an uneasy feeling about photography. Somebody once said to me, “Don’t take pictures, because you’re never coming back.” That stuck. I worry that concentrating on photography somehow dilutes or dims the moment as you experience it, diminishing your appreciation of living.
But for Colin, taking pictures intensifies appreciation, amplifying and solidifying moments as they pass.



We left Albuquerque late, and as the sun set we ditched I-40 for route 66. When the pavement ran out, Colin grabbed his camera.



We lingered to watch the sun go down.



And then we saw the ghost mustangs slipping across the road in the dusk.



One thing leads to another... Colin gets that. That makes him the genius companion.
Thanks buddy.

PS – We’re hiking down the Grand Canyon tomorrow, so there won’t be any blog until late Thursday, I wouldn’t think. E you then.