We woke at 9am in Yellowstone and hit the road Oregon bound. No time for Old Faithful, or Grand Prisma. I heard that jumping off the waterfalls in Fairy Falls is a must. I guess I’ll have to return one day. On the way out we saw Pronghorn, more Bison with their babies and Bull Moose. We suited up in Canon Village Montana with some pretty serious cowboy hats and drove straight until 5:55pm when the geography told us to stop. In Idaho Falls, just outside of Areo, off the Oregon Trail (US 20) was an ocean of lava, known as Craters Of The Moon. It was an ominous pit stop that was beautiful in its silence of life. Like Mother Nature paved over a huge lush garden that was now forever sentenced underground. My pictures don’t do Craters of The Moon any justice. It was stupid windy and tumble weeds were chasing us and sticking to my prized paintings, so I rushed this shoot. My inner Harley homing device directed us right at Idaho Falls Harley Dealership where I was offered a job and scored a classic black HD t-shirt. We settled down in Baker City Oregon late that night with sloppy chicken wings and a local rock band in a strip mall parking lot.
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Yellowstone – A Forest
We woke with the world at 9am. I sat listless on a log drinking my coffee with a bird. That bird just starred at me while sitting mere inches away. I felt special, but I think that bird is just so used to people and was probably just hanging around longing for a crumb of my breakfast. There was bison everywhere. They kind of took my breath away. It is so strange to me to be completely engulfed in nature while simultaneously entangled in society. That is Yellowstone in a nutshell. We spent the day in Yellowstones Grand Canyon, known as Lower Falls. Magical and stunning, even with the herds of people everywhere. There was no escaping these families, they were hiding in every nook of those woods. After a 3 hour hike to the falls base we were awarded with a DOUBLE RAINBOW!!! The crowds of people, young and old, that braced the trek down were all ironically freaking out just like the actual Double Rainbow guy. It was a moment of pure and silly consciousness, where we were all apart of the whole. After a vigorous day on no sleep we had a great dinner in the Canon Camps dinning room. This fancy camping is not really for me, it just seems so wrong, and takes all the fun out of the experience, but I must admit, I was grateful for the warmth, comfort and the wine tonight. Crowds of people make me want an expensive dinner. Later that evening we had another manic gorgeous photo shoot with Benevolence 2 in the woods. I was reminded of The Cure song, A Forest. When I look at these photos I feel such eery darkness and isolation. I wanted that. I don’t even remember the screaming children, the classic rock or the hum of conflicting mass conversation in surround sound. In these photos, I feel only the forest.
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Yellowstone or Bust – Chardron Iowa to Yellowstone Wyoming
Finally ate a real breakfast of hash browns, eggs and salsa! I was so deprived of nutrients this made me feel like the luckiest girl in the world. Guzzled our watery coffee, and hit the road by 10am! I even bought myself a trashy pink Harley t-shirt in Casper. The old Oregon Trail is long and beautiful, even at 70 mph, I just can’t imagine it by foot. My cozy road trip in our VW SUV felt as if we would never make it to Yellowstone, let alone California. Traveling for years on foot and wagon, in a state of perpetual expansion, must have just been the most strikingly helpless buildup of excitement. In some ways, I long for such an experience, to travel through the unknown to the other side. No one in this day of knowing will ever truly know what that is like.
Today was the day. We stopped for so many adventures. Boysen State park is where my next vacation must be. That reservoir was gorgeous. I wanted to just pull over and set up camp forever. Wyoming felt like home. The terrain, the sky, the people, the way the cattle are raised and the fact that there is no cell phone reception in the entire state. I fell madly in love with Wyoming. Before ever setting foot on American soil, as a child, my first love was of “Americana”. I dreamed of the smell of Wyoming, of cowboys, open range, endless sunsets, freedom and motorcycles, and here it was. Had a mad feet dip dash in “The Worlds Largest Mineral Hot Spring”. My feet were vibrating for the next 48 hours. Our second meal that day was in Thermopolis – Whiskey, Steak, rainbow trout and vegetables! First vegetables since Canada, best steak of my life AND I managed to have it all without a trace of cheese thrown on top. You know you are headed towards civilization when there is no cheese on top of everything, vegetables and good coffee. Stopped again in Cody, the birth place of Jackson Pollock; a cool bustling town, and bought camping gear. We rolled into Yellowstone just after 1am, saw 2 otter, and 3 deer before setting up our fancy complicated tent. Freezing, absolutely terrible sleep by 4am.