Through the lens… Road Trippin’ It

Jacob Tovar, Photographer

This Spring Break, I went on a road trip with seven other photographers. We packed a van and literally just started driving. There was no need for hotel reservations, as we were just going to rough it.

Our plan was to travel throughout Oregon and Washington, with a stop at San Francisco to take photos. We had some spots mapped out that we wanted to stop at, but for the most part we stopped at whatever caught our eye.

We left Bakersfield at 10 a.m. and got to Rowena, Oregon at 2 a.m.

Half of us decided to sleep in a tent, while the other half stayed inside the van.

The next day, we roamed around Oregon to the Multnomah Falls, the Columbia River Gorge, and a couple other random spots.

We then ventured up to Shelton, Washington, getting there at 1 a.m. After we set up camp in a random parking lot, we tried to get some much needed sleep.

That night, it started pouring rain and the guys who slept in the tent ended up underwater, so we had to pack-up at 3 a.m. in the heavy Pacific Northwest rain.

We were about 30 minutes from our next destination, so we loaded the van and looked for a good spot to park.

A couple hours later we woke up and began searching for the Vance Creek Bridge. We searched for hours and we eventually found it.

It has been on my bucket list to take photos at Vance Creek forever. The view is indescribable.

From Vance Creek in Washington, we made the 17 hour drive to San Francisco. We pulled an all-nighter and took photos of the Bay Bridge and Twin Peaks until the sun rose, and eventually we made our way downtown.

In SF, we hit a couple rooftops, but it was not long before hotel management threatened to call the cops on us for trespassing.

Fortunately they let us go and we wrapped up our trip.

Jacob Tovar’s work can be seen on his Instagram @motvd.