Arizona is a jewel. Besides the hot, desert summers, Arizona is home to beautiful sunsets, beautiful nature, and, for petrolheads like me and my local car club at Arizona State University, beautiful roads. One of these roads is the State Route 88, leading up to Canyon Lake and Tortilla Flats, and called the Apache Trail. On a spur-of-the-moment decision, a large group of us decided to cruise up there. Despite having to wake up at 6am, my God it was worth it. Below in the pictures, I experimented with Photoshop a little, trying to get a "vintage" feel to the photos. The photos taken of driving were blindly done using my camera's automatic mode.

The road up to Tortilla Flats was beautiful, with beautiful views of Canyon Lake and the surrounding mountains. However, as it was the road leading to the lake as well as Tortilla Flats, traffic was encountered, so we took a leisurely pace. After a few snafus involving scraping and car parts, we all rejoined at Tortilla Flats, took bathroom breaks, and snapped a group shot before heading up the rest of the road. With less traffic, we took a more spirited pace up the road before turning back where the tarmac turned to dirt and heading down. We ascended again so we could go and take photos.

The dirt area by the dirt road was like a Photo Mode scene from Gran Turismo. It was beautiful; the blue skies with wispy clouds, the impressive rock formations behind, and the desert flora dotting the landscape.

After talking and some casual photos, we moved the cars to clear space for one-on-one photo shoots. It was so much like a Photo Mode scene from Gran Turismo I could not believe it. The landscape was so perfect for photos.

I look forward to the next time we head up the Apache Trail. It truly is a wonderful cruise.

So, I'm beginning to edit and upload all my photos I've taken over the past three months that I did not have time to go through during school. Here is the first completed collection, which has come ahead of the Cars and Coffee photos because I need to complete it first for my friends.

If you do not know, Barrett is the honors college at Arizona State University, and every year Barrett hosts a formal dance. I had no intention of going, but several of my friends who were wished to have some photos taken. So, I obliged.

We decided to take photos in the square of Old Main, which have the oldest buildings in the campus, with some nice brickwork and flora. Unfortunately, everyone else wished to take photos in the same location. So, after having to abandon Old Main and the fountain, we settled on another building that looked just as nice.

There were four people I needed to photograph, but only two of my friends were present. So, I took some photos of them together.

After these snapshots, we decided to take some individual photos, utilizing the beautiful flower bushes and railing nearby. Of course, there was also the traffic on the road behind us that we had to worry about, but at least traffic wasn't too bad, and there were enough opportunities to take photos without cars in the background. Here's the gallery of my first friend.

And after her, my other friend:

And another group photo:

After all this, the others arrived. I guess there was a miscommunication because they said they were also there, but I was confused and time was running short, so I snapped a few group photos before my friends departed for the dance.

We all went to dinner afterwards, and I returned to ASU to freak out about my physics grade.