Travel Writing & Photography
From January to August of 2019, I traveled across the continental United States in a 19-foot fiberglass camper with my then fiancée, dog, and two cats. The trip was a carefully planned sabbatical between career changes and a big move. We ricocheted around the country trying to see as much as we could in the time we had allotted ourselves. In an attempt to keep our memories in order, I kept an (almost) daily journal, accompanied by photos of our travels, for the 220 days we spent on the road. Below are excerpts from a few of my favorite places.
Throughout Yellowstone, steam rises like smoke from the ground in dense, billowing puffs. These scattered pockets of heat escape from below the Earth's crust as far as the eye can see. Lush green meadows yield to spongy wetlands and boiling water bubbles along, looking like a cheery spring save for wisps of steam trailing along behind it. The earth here is alive, moving, shifting, erupting, and it invigorates the senses.
There are mud pots, some of which fling thick wet clay up into the air with a pop. Pools of pure white with the consistency of milk gurgle and froth. We walk on boardwalks as much to protect our feet as the fragile ground itself. Sporadic deep, muddy hoofprints indicate that buffalo need no such protection.
At the Dragon's Mouth spring, steam erupts from a cave with such ferocity that the air ricochets off the inner walls and bellows loud, the sound of an underground demon threatening to emerge. Old Faithful bursts forth with a predictable and spectacular display that evokes the same oohs and ahhs as fireworks. When the wind changes we can feel the spray on our faces.
The Grand Prismatic Spring is the pièce de volcanic résistance. A steep hike leads us to an overlook where we can see the massive kaleidoscope pool in its entirety, deep blue framed by rings of electric green, yellow, and orange. It dominates the landscape while dwarfing the tiny silhouettes of people who flock at its edge. Our second view is from the boardwalk, where we get close enough to feel its heat wafting over us in pungent waves. The ground is rippled on approach as water runs down to meet the Firehole River, leaving minerals that form textured ridges that fill to become a series of shallow reflective pools. At the outermost edge of the spring, the ground is acid orange and has the appearance of fractured peanut brittle. It is wholly unreal.
Yellowstone would not be the iconic place it is without its buffalo, and a visit is incomplete without seeing them. We came across a herd of several hundred spread across several rolling hills, grazing quietly as a fiery sun set behind them, signaling the end of our first day in the world's first national park.
YELLOWSTONE
July 9, 2019
craters of the moon
July 18, 2019
Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the moon landing, and although we feel quite certain we will never take steps on a planet other than Earth we can still say that we have traced one of the same paths as the Apollo 11 astronauts. Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve protects over six hundred square miles of lava fields which contain cinder and spatter cones, lava tubes, and endless expanses of black ground that glitter under the hot sun. This is wherein 1969, NASA sent astronauts to study the moon-like landscape before rocketing off into space.
It's not a far reach. The ground is foreign and complex; miles of cooled lava lay in heaps of rubble, long ripples draped like yards of heavy fabric. Down in the lava tubes, small boulders of glassy obsidian reflect the light of our headlamps as we navigate around their sharp edges. It is a visual feast of textures. In one area we clamber around a shallow canyon formed where the ground has collapsed on itself; capillaries have split off and we peer down to see the lava is more than ten feet deep. How deep it actually is, we don't know. In many places the surface has cracked and split to reveal an entirely different substrate: reddish brown stone wrinkled in neat parallel waves.
The July sun beats down on the lava fields and heat builds as on a blacktop. A cave's promise of cool air is undeniable, so we hunch and crawl down a hole made visible within a shallow collapse. Inside, the wind that has plagued us since we first crossed the Idaho border is absent. It is still, and quiet, and cold. Instantly our exhales condense and hang in the air with ghostly presence. The quiet is interrupted by the echoing drips of water as they fall. The surfaces are iridescent, illuminated by our headlamps. Perennial ice coats the floors, walls and ceilings.
The path back from the cave is an undulating ribbon of man-made concrete, another shade of black in a dark landscape, an artificial break that leads the way. And although ancient volcanic activity has marred the earth here, we find that even wildflowers can flourish in this hostile environment, a testament to the tenacity of life
badlands
August 4, 2019
There is a place out here, at the confluence of grasslands and badlands, where worlds collide. In August, the prairie is ringing in the last hurrahs of summer, flowers coating knee high grass. The vivid greens and yellows strike a dramatic contrast against the muted tones of stone and clay.
Yet both are wild, desolate places. There is stillness, even as the wind whips across the buttes and through dusty canyons, stark beauty in the harsh climate. The sun is already unforgiving mere hours after dawn, beating us back to the shade of our campsite after only a mile of hiking.
We retreat into the camper when dark clouds roll in. We hunker down at the onset of an angry storm armed with bright flashes of lighting and wind driven rain pounding horizontal against the windows. Ferocious but short lived, the storm subsides and we emerge to find ourselves stranded on an island, wading through inches of water to get to the truck.
But the Badlands after rain! The colors are richer, saturated glowing red and orange. The sky is calm, conciliatory, and the light is softer, a truce between sun and storm.
