The gods of weather – Zeus if you’re an Ancient Greek, Jupiter if you’re Roman, Wulwuaid if you subscribe to the mythological beliefs of Australian aboriginals, whomever – have smiled upon our white Buick LaCrosse for the last 23 days. From San Francisco, California, to Salem, Massachusetts, it’s been the rare time that sunny, clear skies weren’t above us.

In Boston, however, we must have forgotten to sacrifice our fatted calf or burn some incense or throw a virginal maiden off a mythical cliff, because trying to run a photo shoot in the rain with a battery pack – were you to use two words to describe such a situation, ‘sucks ass.’

But with the shutter click of what would become the 1,500th or so of my *usable* images (this figure doesn’t include those taken to nail down light settings, blurred images, ones with people picking their noses or grabbing their crotches, et cetera, making my pictures-taken figure something in the realm of 25,062), I felt a weight off my shoulders, I felt a burden lifted from my soul … I felt fucking raindrops on my face. Wuluwaid was telling me to finish this damn trip after day 24 drew to a close.

Now all that’s left to do is pack up the gear, ship it back, have a nice, refined dinner … and to celebrate National Collegiate Alcohol Awareness Week by getting drunk as Faulkner. This was a guy who, when asked to rehash his acceptance speech for his 1950 Nobel Prize in literature, couldn’t remember because he was too drunk while receiving his award to recall what he said. Tonight, I celebrate the end of a trip – an epic journey lasting three and a half weeks, covering 7,800 miles, bearing witness to the 25,062-odd pictures taken and serving up one $179 speeding ticket – by doing my best Faulkner and hitting the streets of Boston in style.

Tomorrow night: Our intrepid hero sleeps in his own bed!