Alaska 2024: Roll 1 - Grand Island and Badlands
The first roll of film on the Alaska 2024 trip was shot on day one and day two. Our first part of the drive took us from Denton, Texas with Kristy, Ripley, and Kenai to Gainesville, Texas. In Gainesville we picked up our other two crew members on our adventure, Katy and Ed which completed our party.
Our drive went straight north on Interstate 35 until we hit Salina, Kansas and then we left the interstate and took US 81 for the majority of the afternoon. Once we hit Interstate 80 in Nebraska we turned west for about an hour until we hit Grand Island.
This was the first time that Katy, Kenai, and Ed had been to Nebraska and our fourth state on the trip.
Once we arrived in Grand Island, we unloaded the Suburban and settled in for the night. I took a quick tour of the parking lot of our hotel to try and get started on shooting the Xpan and some film. For the trip I was planning on using to mostly use the 30mm lens for the Xpan so I figured that was a good place to start.
This roll was shot on Ilford HP5 at box speed of ISO 400. I planned on shooting everything on this trip at box speed instead of experimenting with pulling or pushing.
The next morning after a nice run on a rails-to-trail in Grand Island, we made our way to the top of the state and stopped quickly at the Niobrara River just south of Valentine, Nebraska. We made our way over to Bryan Bridge, which provided us with nice views of the river.
The big event for this second day of our trip was to drive through Badlands National Park. For Kristy and I this was our second trip to the park together. The other four on the trip had not been before so we had a good time watching their reactions.
We entered the park near Interior and made our way west on the park. Even from the parking lot of the Ben Reifel Visitor Center we had wonderful views.
Overall I thought this was a good first roll on the trip. The next couple of rolls follow us through the park so I hope you are looking forward to more images from Badlands.