Finishing the Job - Summary

This is the last post of a series (back to the start)

I had a long, long day of photographing and driving, but after shooting the Cromer grain elevator, I still had to drive three and a half hours home!

The Road Home

I stopped in Virden and had a late supper at the A&W there. I elected to eat in as I wanted to take a break from driving and gather my wits about me before the long drive home.

Once I tucked the grease away, I was on my way down the Trans-Canada. I passed by Brandon without incident and I dodged a deer carcass at one spot. Apparently someone had hit one and the body was in my lane, but I was awake enough to cut over and avoid it. That would have messed my Civic up!

As I approached Portage la Prairie, I saw a CN westbound freight approaching. I had lots of time, so I decided to try a quick night photograph of the train. I pulled off to a quiet side road and quickly set up my tripod and camera and shot this 5 second exposure. I didn't have a chance to get closer to the tracks before the train arrived.

The streak

Those were the locomotive's headlights, and my car's headlights were providing the foreground illumination.

I took a few longer exposures of the train, including the 30 second exposure below.

There were Northern Lights?

I had noticed the aurora borealis with the naked eye and I'm glad I caught a bit of it.

I carried on home without incident - although I did pull off a time or to for a quick 5 minute shuteye - and arrived home at 1:34 AM with only a couple of podcasts remaining on my phone.

The Statistics

• 25 new-to-me grain elevators
• 647 photos taken with my DSLR (Canon T1i)
• 28 photos taken with my iPhone 6
• 1,254 km driven over 21 hours and 48 minutes (57 km/hr average)
• $100.26 in gasoline
• Umpteen podcasts listened to
• One tick stowaway
• One great set of memories!

Thanks for reading along.

If you've enjoyed this series, you might also like:

• Southwest Manitoba Grain Elevator Trip
• Northwest Manitoba Elevator Trip

Please consider joining my mailing list to get updates on my various blogs.