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7founded a successful small publishing business. Then, as we reached our 50s, we grew restless, and were ready to explore new horizons once again.The next leg of our journey began when I picked up a flyer listing classes at Bloomington%u2019s John Waldron Art Center, and a photography course caught my eye. It was very basic, just eight weeks long, but I signed up, and was immediately hooked. Within days of completing the class, I purchased a new, medium-format Mamiya camera and started building my own darkroom. I also embarked on an in-depth, selfstudy program by reading every photography book I could get my hands on%u2014monographs, histories, biographies, as well as books on technique. Within a few years I had over 300 books in my personal photography library.From the day Lynn and I met, we%u2019ve gone for drives together out in the country. Three or four times a month we%u2019d head off in a direction we%u2019d never been before, just to see what was there. Now, we found ourselves heading out%u2014specifically to take photographs%u2014two or three times a week. As I got used to my new camera, I was surprised to see that I was actually mastering the medium. I progressed from having one or two keepers per roll of film, to several. My darkroom skills also improved and, as I learned to access my creative side, I realized I%u2019d probably had a latent ability all along. One day, while we were out driving, Lynn suggested we publish a book of my photographs. Because we already owned our own publishing company, it seemed like an obvious next step. Just 8 years after taking that short photography course, we%u2019re completing this, our sixth Indiana photography book. It%u2019s been a journey neither of us could have foreseen ten years earlier, much less when we met in 1972.Today, we lead lives completely intertwined with how we earn a living. Together, we travel highways and back roads, seeking out relics of a disappearing Hoosier past. As I take photographs, Lynn keeps records of the locations on her iMac laptop computer, and interviews fascinating local people. Together, we evaluate contact sheets to determine which images to print and, with her artist%u2019s eye (she has a degree in Art Education) she does an excellent job of critiquing my work. When it%u2019s time to prepare a book for the printer, she%u2019s the one who makes the final selection of images, as she designs and lays out the cover and all the pages. So far, our books have required 75,000 miles of journeying, and we%u2019ve visited every city and town (2,099 localities in all) on the Indiana Highway Map. By keeping our own hours, we can, on a minute%u2019s notice, set out on a 16-hour day trip. Or, I might spend time in my darkroom, while Lynn writes an essay about an interesting place we%u2019ve investigated. Or, we might hike in the woods, or read a book. It%u2019s a job%u2014a life%u2014that suits us perfectly.As we travel across Indiana, Lynn and I often marvel at how fortunate we are to be able to do what we do%u2014driving around, exploring, discovering unique places. When we come across the battered and rusted hulk of a once-shiny Packard, we know it%u2019s much more than an abandoned car, for it was probably an important part of someone%u2019s life. When we see a stretch of heavy, steel railroad tracks being ripped up, when we look at the ruin of a limestone lock on the Wabash & Erie Canal, when we encounter an empty railroad station, we know these are places that have shaped the destinies of countless Hoosiers.Yes, we all have memories of journeys involving cars, trains, buses, bridges, roads, and more. We remember how they affected us, changed our lives. There are tales of transportation journeys that all of us could tell but, with the passing of time, many of the stories are destined to be lost, forgotten, unrecorded. This book is filled with transportation relics, but it%u2019s not the objects that are important. It%u2019s the journeys they took us on%u2014especially to destinations within ourselves. It%u2019s the journeys that make us who we are.May Journey%u2019s End trigger memories of your sojourns across this Hoosier state%u2014and keep them alive.John Bower