At least once a year, I drive across the United States with my husband, Ted, so that I can continue to document the American scene.  In August of last year, I completed my Washington, D.C., neighborhood study, and I was ready to go out on the road and capture wooden barns, fields of crops and teeny, tiny towns. We headed up to the Finger Lakes in Upper State New York.  It was beautiful, serene and incredibly photogenic scene. The Finger Lakes are a series of narrow and long lakes that are among the deepest in America.

I’ve become a sort of shirtsleeve expert on America, and I have traveled throughout the vast majority of its ribbon of highways. But somehow the Finger Lakes had eluded me.  Now I can include it in my trove of images that I have been gathering of America over the past 30 years.

I always love to visit small diners and taste real down-to-earth American cuisine as I travel our country.  I was mightily tempted to have one of the “Beef on Wecks” at the Pok-A-Dot Diner in Genesee, New York, but I controlled myself because I knew I had thousands of miles to go, and if I let down my guard early in the trip, I would be the size of my house by the time I returned to it.

There is no doubt that a diner is about as American as you can get.  They open at the crack of dawn and close way after my bedtime.  And the food is classic American fare.  Diners are served oversized plates full of over-the-top fattening food, often smothered in gravy.  It took a lot of self-control to curb myself in this unique diner. By the way, if you’re curious, “Beef on Weck” is an Upstate New York speciality.  It’s a soft roll, coated in sea salt and caraway seeds, filled with the freshest of rare roast beef.  Ah, only in America!!!