Smash & Grab

This is a term I had never heard until someone smashed two of my truck windows overnight in Tracy, CA (a suburb of San Fran) and snatched up my camera, 3 lenses, and all accompanying accessories. Of course, I could have avoided this by not leaving $2500+ worth of camera gear in the truck while we were sleeping soundly in our Fairfield Inn hotel room. Luckily we had both of our laptops and all of Lauren's camera gear inside with us. A slight downer to an otherwise successful cross-country adventure.

I'll let Lauren write an overview in a later post because she's better at that kind of stuff, but for now I'll just say the trip was amazing. We drove over 14,000 miles during a 6-week, coast-to-coast trip which included two border crossings into Canada, nearly two dozen National Parks, a number of State Parks (and RV Parks for that matter), getting pulled over twice (with two verbal warnings), and way too much McDonald's and Subway.

The good news is that I had recently backed up my photos to my laptop before my camera was stolen, so Lauren and I will be adding a number of our x-country shots to the Photos That Give library over the next couple of days. Although I'm currently camera-less, we're committed to getting PTG up and running within the next week or two which includes finalizing a logo, adding a few more charities, and making the last few tweaks to the website.

We're looking forward to the launch and hope our most recent photos will inspire everyone to explore the diverse landscapes of our country.