Scene on the Road

June 15, 2008: Don't Ask ( "Crispy Outside, Mashed Potato Inside!" )

June 16, 2008: 11th & Callowhill. Open During Renovation

June 17, 2008: American Legion Rec Center, Wissinoming

Here's your chance to tell an Inquirer photographer where to go.

I'm ready to hit the road again. It won't be the regular weekly road trips for the newspaper this summer, like I did last year, but I still want to explore the region occasionally.

I received many photographs from readers last summer, and many suggestions of places I should visit, so that's exactly what I'll be doing: Driving to the places you send me.

Last summer Ann Spaeth of Miquon sent me some of her photos of old covered bridges in Lehigh County, including this one of Rex's Bridge (1858) over Jordan Creek.

She suggested I check them out, as did Drexel economics professor Roger A. McCain, who told me it was the "pictorial appeal" of the bridges that first hooked him, but in the true spirit of the summer Road Trip, they provided him a "fun reason for a drive in the country."

Still true (even with gasoline costing over $4. per gallon) and I intend to take them up on their suggestion.

This is exactly the kind of serendipity I already enjoy working on the streets of Philadelphia. On Tuesday, I stumbled across a just-graduated (B.F.A., crafts) artist outside City Hall yesterday.

I was covering two different press conferences there and in between, I passed Alex Irvine, 22, of South Philadelphia who had his camera on a tripod pointed toward a "black stoneware" ceramic sculpture. I asked him about it, made a few photos of him and the reactions of passersby before I had to move on. He was still there after I finished the second press conference, so I shot more photos, and then, when he had finished, I followed him as he pushed his "self portrait" toward the University of the Arts.

I will continue to celebrate and share scenes like this, which serve to remind us to enjoy the journey - even one just a few blocks down South Broad with a 150-pound work of art - rather than focusing on the destination.

Click on the links here, here, here and here to revisit some readers photos from last year. I look forward to posting more here this summer as well. Like last year, please send them to me as jpeg attachments, in an email to roadtrip@phillynews.com

June 18, 2008: H.B. Wilson Elementary, Camden

June 19, 2008: South Street, Former "Gum Tree"

June 20, 2008: West Philadelphia Catholic High School

June 21, 2008: The Barbara Sandonato School of Ballet.