I was the last person in America to acquire a smartphone. I swear, two-year-olds and nursing home residents had iPhones before me. But I was fine. Really, I was, I didn’t need an iPhone. In fact I was starting to get creeped out by how attached people were getting to these things. Are you really watching a movie and playing Temple Run at the same time? Yup, until my trusty old dumb phone (waterproof, bombproof, dust-proof but alas not lose-proof) took a dive out of my pocket and was never seen from again, I was perfectly content being antiquated. But faced with the dilemma of purchasing a new phone I took the easy way out and adopted my dad’s retired iPhone 4. (Yes, my father went through multiple iPhones before I got my first. He also got Twitter before me. I’m over it).

And, maybe you saw this coming, but I like it . For a lot of reasons, but mainly because it puts my old point-n-shoot camera to shame. Not only does it take similar quality photos, it is smaller, lighter, more convenient and sports the added bonus of instagram filters, which have quickly become my favorite thing. It’s no DSLR, but it does a pretty good job for being, you know, a telephone…aka something that as recently as a decade ago was still attached to a wall.

This summer I spent three months driving around the southwest sticking my phone out the window. Here are the results. In case you need convincing that this is the best place on earth…