Rookie Travel Tip #1

Driving along at 80 miles an hour, you’ll see wondrous sights. You’ll have no place to pull over. You will fear you’ll forget these wondrous sights. Or the trenchant commentary that came to you when you see them.

You will devise a brilliant solution:

Pull out your camera, turn it on, and, eyes mostly on the road, aim and shoot.

These 80 mph-from-your-bugshot-windshield shots will turn out about as well as one might expect. They may or may not jog a memory of their wonder, and/or of your trenchant commentary.

In order to have your camera ready to go, you will leave your lens cap off as you drive. This will result in coffee, seltzer, road dust, etc., settling on your lens.

You will forget to turn the camera off after you take your shots. This will result in your arriving at your destination with a dead camera battery.

When you search for your battery charger, you will find that you’ve left it somewhere between Nebraska and Wyoming.

Finding most towns bereft of camera stores, you will end up at a Wal-Mart Supercenter. It will have just run out of camera battery chargers.

You will end up at a Wal-Mart Supercenter in the next town. It also will have run out.

These side trips — and other miscalculations — will cause you to show up 40 minutes late at the remote outpost in Utah where you have sworn to meet your friend to scout a campsite for a large group.

These experiences, combined, will lead you to:

Pro Travel Tip #1

Watch the road.

Enjoy the scenery.

If it’s memorable, you’ll remember it.

If what you said about it was memorable, ditto.

You will end your day’s journey with a clean lens, a charged camera, and two fewer fruitless trips to Wal-Mart Supercenters.

Also, alive.