Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

Before leaving town on our final day in Seattle, Washington, we visited one last beach, Picnic Point Park in Edmonds. This rocky beach had great views of Whidbey Island and the Puget Sound. It was a drizzly day, but for the most part the rain paused while we were there, and the sun briefly shined through the grey sky, exposing a beautiful but fleeting blue.

The kids combed the beach for seashells, unusual rocks and anything related to sea life. My wife and I took in the view, breathing in the moist Pacific air. This was going to be our last view of the ocean for awhile, and so we tried to make the moment last as long as we could. We had a great time at this spot.

It was bittersweet to leave, not just this beach but Seattle. The trip had been a lot of fun! It was great to relive old memories and make new ones. Washington is such a beautiful state. We wanted to stay longer, but it was time to go. We had a long day of driving ahead of us.

The drive across the state of Washington was long. It rained hard and then snowed crossing the mountain pass. It was mostly sunny on the west side of the state. We made good time by making minimal stops, only braking for gas, food and restrooms. The kids did surprisingly well, including the baby–they were all troopers. Our hotel was in Boise, Idaho, and we arrived very late, exhausted from the long trip.

We awoke the next day to wet weather in Idaho. We took our time leaving because we were no longer in a hurry. Some old friends of ours live in Boise, and we met up with them for a little while before beginning the last leg of our journey.

It was dark before we entered Utah and it was late when we got home. We appreciated that we took our time on this last day, and we didn’t feel so stressed upon arrival. It was good trip, but it was good to be home. It felt good to sleep in my own bed.

The photographs on these last two days were captured using a Fujifilm X100F, all camera-made JPEGs using my Acros Push-Process Film Simulation recipe and my Velvia Film Simulation recipe. I used my wide-angle conversion lens for some of the pictures. One fully charged battery lasted both days.

 

In the end, after seven days on the road, I captured 792 exposures, keeping 198 of them. That means I had a success rate of one in four, which is incredible! Many of those were personal family pictures, but still, I didn’t delete nearly as many pictures as with other cameras I’ve traveled with in the past. I shared 144 of those images with you in this series of posts. Perhaps I included too many photographs in each section, but I felt it was better to share too many than too few. I hope you enjoyed them!

The Fujifilm X100F proved to be a great travel camera, fitting into my pockets without a problem, never getting in the way, and always ready to capture in whatever environment I was in. The wet weather was no problem. The different light situations were no problem. I came home and had minimal post-processing–almost all of the images from this trip are straight-out-of-camera, no editing. A few needed some minor manipulation, but only a small handful of them.

Even better than the photography was the experience of the trip. People invest a lot of money in camera gear. I find it better to instead invest in experiences whenever possible. Don’t buy that new lens, but go someplace that you’ve never been and use what equipment you already have. Keep your gear simple and be content with it. You’ll be happier for it, I’m sure.