DAVID SKERNICK

Buy the Book: Amazon
Title: Lost on Gray Roads
Published by: Mr. Moose Press
Release Date: January 1, 2012
ISBN13: 978-1467538039

 
Overview

This is a book of photographs. It follows a route along the back roads of the USA. Many are panoramic photos made up of as many as 15 separate images. Being lost is not about losing one’s way, but rather the utter pleasure of being nowhere specific. There is something about not being in somewhere that is intensely freeing. On the maps you can get at your local AAA office, gray is the color of the smaller, two-lane winding roads. You know, the ones for which you get a map precisely because you want to avoid them. Gray roads are definitely not the fastest route from one point to the other: they are the exact opposite. They ramble across the landscape, meandering like they have only a vague idea where they are going, hunting for clues of cardinality along the way in small towns and railroad crossings. My choice of gray roads is really my love of that adventure and the freedom that comes with it.

The freedom to try new things, freedom to experience life through the eyes of those you meet, the freedom of time, of choosing to slow down so travel becomes multi-directional rather than a straight arrow (My trusty Ford pickup is named Bob for exactly this reason: the name is the same whether it’s coming or going). So, I guess you could say this book is really more of a love story. The love of freedom, love of nature, love of travel, love of adventure. Not the Karoacian sort of adventure with human struggle and triumph, but the adventure of a profound never-ending road trip that always ends in “You wouldn’t believe what I saw. Let me show you”. Perhaps the more accurate title of this book would be “Lost on Gray Roads: A love story of finding stuff along the way.”