In 2003, when Ernie (named for the 50s TV comedian, Ernie Kovacs) was a year and five months old, we took a cross country trip to visit my family at Thanksgiving. I also had friends in Pittsburgh and Louisville, two cities I’d never visited, plus an old roommate in Chicago, so we planned a grand tour. I hadn’t driven through Kentucky and Tennessee, so I looked forward to that, and to seeing Memphis for the first time. As we got ready to go, my wife said, “Why don’t you take a picture of Ernie in every state you visit?” So I did.

I wasn’t necessarily trying to portray the states, although it’s easy to tell Colorado from Indiana, in the background. Mostly the photos show our pup, a german shepherd mix. He’s very bonded to us, and at first as I drove US highway 50 across Nevada and Utah he lay with his head over the back seat rest, looking out the rear window, as if wondering at all that growing distance between us and Mom. He didn’t know, of course, about her plane ticket to MSP, so he had a surprise in store.