Do you remember when disposable cameras were a thing? Film cameras used to be the only thing. Digital cameras, when they came out, were such a big deal... And now I've got a nice camera on my phone, and take 100 shots of one thing because I can. 

There's something really beautiful about film cameras though. That moment when you take a photo and you have no idea what it looks like. Or how it might develop. 

When I was in high school, I took a photography class where we only used film cameras. That was a cool experience just to know how to manipulate film and see the process of development. 

But digital is so convenient.

Because it's convenient, sometimes it feels not as special. More planned too. More perfected... but in a sad way.

I had this idea that when I went on my Route 66 road trip that I would only use disposable cameras and get the big surprise at the end of the trip of how the pictures turned out. 

Unfortunately, that's actually pretty expensive nowadays. So I kind of dropped that aspect of the trip. April knew about this little dream though, and bought me a disposable camera and gave it to me before my trip.

I took it with me, only taking a few pictures here and there. I still had some left when I got to the farm. And then some left when April came to visit Nashville. And still had some even when I went home for the holidays. I used the very last pictures on the first day of the new year.

I finally got them developed here at a Walmart in Nashville that didn't give me the picture CD with it. So, while I will not trust Walmart with my disposable camera photos ever again, I was grateful to get these back. From a critical perspective, the coloring is imperfect, some of the shots are out of focus, or gritty, overexposed or underexposed. 

But what I love is they absolutely capture the moments. Just that snap second moment. I didn't have a chance to know if it'd be good or not. And, in the end, it doesn't really matter. Because memories aren't exactly judged that way. It just is.