Weekly Photo Challenge: Our Year in Pictures, 2012

December 31, 2012 - Galleries, Photography, Weekly Photo Challenge - Tagged: , ,
December- Cross Country Drive, Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah

December- Cross Country Drive, Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah

Here we are on the last day of 2012. The cliche is true: time flies.

We began the year with the last few stops of a 10-month journey.  On New Year’s Day 2012 we visited the Erawan Shrine in downtown Bangkok, Thailand. The shrine isn’t old, but is a very important site and a testament to spirituality in modern Thai society. Right in front of a busy intersection, in a commercial district, with the Skytrain speeding by overhead, we joined people praying in the smoke of burning joss sticks, giving offerings of wreaths of flowers, and entreating special favors by paying an extra fee to the musicians and dancers.

By February we were in the middle of our journey through the northern part of India, an unforgettable part of our trip. Having spent the previous 7 months at a daily average of 80F, it was cold. We saw the sights in Delhi, side-tripped to the Holy River Ganges in Varanasi, saw the Taj Mahal and a tiger, and got on and off the circuit that crisscrosses Rajasthan. There was so much more we wanted to do, but with our 10-year Visa, we’re sure to return.

A highlight of March was meeting some cousins for the first time in England and Scotland, wrapping up our international travels by getting together with family in the land of some of our heritage.  April and May were homecoming back in the US with family in Cape Cod and Georgia, and visits with friends in Florida.  A June family wedding was squeezed in as we started working some short projects.  This time in South Carolina was a perfect change of pace and another great time to spend with family we don’t get to see all the time.  After a Cape Cod send-off in July, we were back to work full-time, setting out on a new mobile marketing tour that took us across the US and back for July, August and September driving a mini-school bus.  Along with working at major events and delivering school supplies to schools in need, we thoroughly enjoyed the cities we visited like New York, Chicago, Minneapolis and Denver, among others.

Another marketing tour was already underway in October, this time for a tasty hazelnut spread! We toasted waffles and baguettes across the nation right up through last week, covering about 7000 miles (over 11000 kilometers) during the tour. We hit some great cities, starting with Boston, traveling down the east coast with stops in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, Atlanta, and Orlando before heading west through New Orleans, Dallas, and Phoenix. The tour wrapped with events in San Diego, LA and San Francisco.  For us these were some fantastic cities for EATING, though October’s Philly cheesesteaks were soon overshadowed by the glorious oysters of New Orleans in November.  Our food tour may have to be the theme of another post! Finally, December’s focus was the long road back to the East Coast from California.

We may not know yet what our continuing journey will entail in 2013, but we plan to keep sharing it here!  Happy New Year!

January- Flower hawker outside Erawan Shrine on New Years Day, Bangkok, Thailand
February- Our chariot in the Thar Desert, near Bikaner, India
March- Urquhart Castle overlooking Loch Ness, Scotland
April- Flying Fishing on the Chattahoochie River, Atlanta, Georgia
May- Estero Island, Fort Myers, Florida
June- Red Hot Poker (Torch Lily), Chesnee, South Carolina
July- Yankee, Cape Cod, Massachusetts
August- Chihuly Glass @ Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Garden, Columbus, Ohio
September- Wagonhound Rest Area, I-80, Wyoming
October- Philadelphia Cheesteak Challenge, Pat’s vs Geno’s
November- French Quarter, New Orleans, Louisiana
December- Cross Country Drive, Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah

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Check out some other bloggers’ 2012 roundups.

About the author

Tamara and Donny have wandered together since 2004, with no cure for their insatiable wanderlust. They write about discovering new destinations including beautiful photography, plus budget travel tips and how to give back through travel.