Chris Penny

Photos

In the winter of 2016 we did a test run — one weekend, sleeping in the back of a hatchback, to find out whether three months of it was survivable. It was. What follows is the trip that came after: ninety days, one yellow Ford Focus with a roof box and an Ontario plate, and a bed built into the back of it.

These are the ones worth keeping. Each links back to the piece it came from.

A yellow Ford Focus parked where two gravel tracks meet beside a lake, bare trees all around
The test run. One car, one weekend, to find out whether three months of this was survivable. Read the piece →
Two pairs of feet in wool socks, seen from inside a car bed looking out the open hatchback at a lake
The view from the bed. The whole argument for the trip is in this photograph. Read the piece →
The yellow Focus on a stony shore under a heavy storm front, a lone figure walking toward the water
Weather coming in, and someone walking out to meet it anyway. Read the piece →
Two people in winter coats and skates standing arm in arm on a frozen canal
Skates on a frozen canal, before any of the driving started. Read the piece →
A person in a toque and scarf leaning on a weathered pier railing, a distant city skyline across open water
A pier, a long grey lake, and a skyline just visible on the far side. Read the piece →
The yellow Focus with a roof box being hand-washed at a car wash bay
Somebody else washing the car for once. The roof box held everything that did not fit in the back. Read the piece →
A man in a cap and sunglasses standing on the rocks beside a wide brown river, a steel bridge and city towers behind
Standing on the levee rocks, watching the barges go by. Read the piece →
Two people sitting up in a bed built into the back of a hatchback, gear in cargo nets overhead, coffee in hand
Morning, in the car. Cargo nets overhead, everything we owned for ninety days within arm's reach. Read the piece →
A foosball table standing outdoors in a city park at dusk, lit trees and a downtown skyline behind
A foosball table left out in a downtown park at dusk. Klyde Warren Park, if you want to go find it. Read the piece →
A side mirror reflecting the yellow car, with a red barn and fenced pasture beyond under a hard blue sky
Red barn, blue sky, and the same yellow fender in the mirror all day long. Read the piece →
A man working on a laptop in an armchair beside an outdoor gas fire pit, city buildings and low sun behind
An office, for the afternoon. This was the part that was supposed to be impossible. Read the piece →
The yellow car glimpsed through pine trunks on a mountain highway, patches of snow on the slopes
Through the pines to the road. Snow still on the ground and the heater working hard. Read the piece →
The curved glass and concrete atrium of a public library seen from an upper floor
A public library good enough to spend a whole day inside. Read the piece →
A figure in a dark hooded coat standing on a stone post above a snow-dusted canyon of red rock spires
Red spires under snow, and nobody else at the lookout. Read the piece →
The Grand Canyon in layered purple and red under a bank of low cloud
The Grand Canyon, doing the thing it does to a photograph. Read the piece →
A pair of legs dangling over the rim of the Grand Canyon, the trail switchbacking far below
Feet over the edge. Same photograph as the first one, four thousand kilometres later. Read the piece →
Red sandstone formations rising above green scrub and pines under a cloudless blue sky
Red rock, hard sun, and air that smelled like hot juniper. Read the piece →
The yellow Focus with its roof box on a red dirt track, desert scrub and a hill under grey cloud
A hatchback with an Ontario plate, a long way down a red dirt road it had no business being on. Read the piece →
The Las Vegas Strip at night, neon reflected in still water in the foreground
Vegas, round one. Read the piece →
Joshua trees and granite boulders scattered across desert under a deep blue sky
Joshua trees, which look invented until you are standing in a field of them. Read the piece →
A man in a backwards cap looking out from a balcony over a city parking lot and high rises at dusk
Looking out at the last city on the list, at the end of the last leg. Read the piece →