Nutty things for people I love

While I was cruising along Alaska’s scant-few roads, I kept finding myself photographing dorky things — from the ordinary to the oddball — that reminded me of my family: cool mountain-road bridges for my architecturally inclined sister Mims; yard sale signs and Alaskan thrift stores for my bargain-hunting sister DeDe; Subway restaurants for my nephew Matt, who *loves* Subway sandwiches (sidenote: wow, Subways must be the new McDonald’s…. they’re practically everywhere!); a plane decked out with Disney’s Tinkerbell for my fairy-fanatic niece Vicki; fluffy yard bunnies for my nieces NeNe and GiGi; the Farthest North Girl Scout Council for my sister Julie, who works for the Girl Scouts in Kentucky; funky bird things for my mom and sister Katie, who, like me, are bird nerds; a giant cone-shaped ice cream parlor for my ice-cream-loving dad; roadside signs peddling jerky of various meat origins for my deer-jerky-chompin’ brother-in-law, Jimmy John; a makeshift basketball court in Barrow for my basketball-playing nephew Quentin and his dad, T-Dog; and, of course, Volkswagen buses and campers for my brother Stan, who spends a lot of time under the hoods of VWs. So although I may have been a solitary traveler trekking across the Last Frontier, I never felt lonely, especially when I’d see these things that made me think of the folks back home.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.