I started out my trip in Chicago, where I met with some friends and celebrated St. Patty’s day right: with green beer, corned beef, the blood of an irish cat, and all.

After Chicago, I flew to Buenos Aires, Argentina and visited with a couple of my friends who have been living there for several months. I got a great taste of their steak, wine, and street art.

Up until this point in my trip I had been shooting with my (formerly) trusty little Fujica. Sadly, that camera met it’s end in Argentina. A screw holding the baseplate onto the bottom of the camera came loose, and the entire bottom popped off, sending parts all over. Examining it closer, this part of the camera is bafflingly poorly put on. the two screws that held it on were no longer than 2mm, and absolutely tiny. When it fell apart, the rewind release mechanism was lost, and the roll I was shooting was stuck in the camera. Too make matters worse, in my excitement to get the film out, I managed to snap off the film from it’s roll. I had to wait until I got the camera back to Seattle before I could have someone open it in a changing bag, and remove the film.

I had Kyle bring down my spare camera, the Canon AE-1, and Torin let me borrow his Nikon N60 for a few rolls, so the rest of the shots are taken on one of those two cameras. Colombia provided no end of fascinating photo opportunities:

This is one of the few shots I used a fill flash for, because shortly after, I left the flash unit on, and the batteries drained.

When these girls set up this chair in the water, I couldn’t help myself. I grabbed my camera and Kyle’s, and probably took 30 photos of them, combined

We visited Old Mampujan one of the first days I stayed there. A stormed loomed in the sky the entire time we were up there, making for some incredible lighting

Ok, at some point, I’ve got to stop putting photos in this post. It has already gotten too long. I’m finishing of with one more photo. It’s not technically from my trip, I took it before I left Seattle, but I like it so much, I’ve got to post it somewhere:

See the rest of the photos from my trip at Picasa.

The company’s website is pretty rudimentary. They’ve made do with a basic Wordpress layout, and their order form requires you to copy text from their site and paste it into an email. It seems unprofessional, but when I say ‘front-room operation’ that’s a literal assessment of the company. When I went to pick up my bags at the Central District house where the company is based, I was given a friendly welcome by Martina and her dog Loki. She ran down the bags features and showed me the room where she put them together. Regardless of the size of the company, they make an excellent product.

One of the most appealing features of the bags, for me, was the custom fabric and color selections that they offer. I picked a rugged waxwear for the outsides of the bags, and matched my saddle with a green-colored trim. I am really happy how the customizations turned out. It is my humble opinion that these bags look beautiful on my bike:

The bags a made with about 12 inches of fabric on the top that can be rolled down to fit loads that are large or small, and there is a flap that folds over the top to keep the rain out. They are lined with vinyl on the inside, to keep them water resistant. They probably aren’t 100% waterproof, because the seams aren’t heat-sealed, but I don’t anticipate any major moisture problems, unless I ride through a lake or something.

The worst problem I had when I first got them was that they sat too far forward on my rack. My feet are big, and so I had some heel strike issues. Martina gladly took them back, and after about a day had rigged the hooks so they sat another inch farther back on my rack. now I am strike-free and happy. I took them out to the Sunday Ballard farmers market to get some ingredients for dinner. A 5lb bag of potatoes, steak meat, a red onion and a few leeks filled one bag less than halfway. With both of them, I’ll have more than enough capacity for groceries and camping trips.

I can’t recommend these bags enough. And, I do. I’ll talk about them to pretty much anyone who will listen. They cost $200 for the set, which is a less than two of the Ortleib bags I was looking at alternatively. Also, since I live in Seattle, they let me pick them up locally, and dropped the $16 shipping fees.

The company is pretty great too. Martina was friendly and accommodating, and made the necessary hook modifications to my bags without charging anything. They’re local, and I am a huge fan of the principles they have founded themselves on. For more information on that, watch the video at PathLessPedaled (I’m impressed that they run their company credit-free).

I’ve got a pretty sweet bike for a beautiful Sunday Morning ride. Now to start saving up for my next upgrade, Green Brooks handlebar tape to match my saddle.

On a photographic tangent; the photos of my bike were taken with an old Fujica ST-801 on expired Fuji Superia 200 speed film. This film is fast becoming a favorite of mine, which is awesome because I have a freezer full of it at home. The photo of the tag was taken with an iPhone app, which is also awesome.

The Canon also has a Macro feature that I probably won’t make as much use of as I could:

I ran a roll through the old Canon AE-1 that my dad brought up from Salt Lake. I’ve got a batch of expired (2002) Kodak Gold 200 that I intended to run through my ill-fated Smena2 (RIP), so I shot a test roll to get a feel for my new toy:

Aside from a lot of fingers in the frame, and a few under-exposed shots, there are a few keepers. It’s all too apparent that 3 years of shooting with shitty russian cameras has destroyed my ability to frame a shot, or set the exposure correctly. These cameras require a lot more attention than I’m used to.