I love taking road trips with Neel and Callum. They're so much easier now than the one we took to move here from California when Callum was four. A bit trickier, that one. We definitely had a phase where Callum watched DVDs in the back of the car, and on our most recent long trip this past summer, I read a book aloud. For this short trip (just over 6 hours), we mostly just chatted and watched the world go by.

I kept my camera in my lap the whole time.

We're making friends, this camera and I. Getting to know each other. Not quite there yet, I'd say. I knew that the only way to really start getting comfortable would be to dive right in, so I kept it with me as much as possible. I took Old Faithful along, because I didn't want to miss any important moments, but in the end, I didn't get her out. Right now, I feel like my brain is trying to assimilate so much information; I've reached my processing limit. I'm taking a photography class with Clickin' Moms, so there's that input going in. I'm trying to adjust to a new camera. More input. We'll work the kinks out, but sometimes it's hard.

Sometimes, it's enough to watch the world go by.

It's scenes like this that make me love the Eastern Shore so much. A humanity so different from my own. The pulse of rural life appeals to me, a life lived amid the heart beat of the land. I could have taken hundreds of pictures just like these. Maybe someday I will. I'd love to make this our destination on some future journey. The marshy by-ways of this natural wonder.

But the road eventually leads away from these tiny towns, dotted as they are by solitary farms and store fronts. Headed further north, away from these scrubby pines, we grow more industrial. The heartbeat of the mid-Atlantic.

There's beauty here too.

And Pennsylvania welcomes us.