For perhaps five years, each time my wife and I took our son and daughter out to enjoy a meal at High Level’s Boston Pizza with friends or on our own we would gaze upon what has become a familiar painting on the wall above the cash register and waiting area – Jack Vettriano’s Bonneville; the painting celebrates the work, the interest and the observation of what it is to break and set different land speed records in various vehicles. Beyond this, there was that movie … Anthony Hopkins, as actor, played the role of Burt Munro in a 2005 movie, ‘The World’s Fastest Indian’ (Indian, here, referring to the Indian motorcycle). Burt Munro was a mechanic/inventor/racer from New Zealand who raced motorcycles. He set a world record at Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats. My wife encouraged me to go. She and our daughter would remain at the hotel and lounge at the pool cooling themselves in Utah’s summer heat (close to 100 F most days). They would remain cool, rest and read their newly purchased Barnes and Noble treasures. I would investigate Utah’s salt flats.

From Midvale, I steered our rented 2012 Toyota Rav 4 toward Salt Lake City and then follow directions from our Tom Tom GPS to Utah’s salt flats, then to the Bonneville speedway and to Wendover, Utah and the B-29 Bomber Base where the crew of Enola Gay were trained in World War II. By day’s end, I would have photographed the salt flats, Bonneville and Wendover; I would have had a flat tire and need to double back to Wendover to have the tire repaired; and, I would almost run out of gasoline on the return drive home. Doubling back would allow me to investigate more fully the B-29 Bomber Base and discover a goldmine of remarkably maintained American-built cars from the sixties and seventies – both at Wendover, Utah.

Here, one of the final rewards of the day was the evening cloud-work after the sun had crossed the horizon.

Shout Out – a big thank you to Maciek Sokulski (‘Shuttertime with Sid and Mac’ podcast) for articulating good best practices for working with Adobe Lightroom.

Quote to Consider/Inspire – “This freezing of time – the insolent, poignant stasis of each photograph – has produced new and more inclusive canons of beauty.” – Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’

Listening to – Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Highway Patrolman.’