The employee parking lots was like a super sized bag of halloween candy. You could get a tootsie roll, some m&ms, an Oregon, some candy corn you’d never eat, a few Michigans and a couple burnt Arizonas.  

This is Telephone Point, a 15 to 20 drive depending on animal traffic and the only place within a reasonable distance to contact the outside world. Ben and I would make this drive every now and then to see if civilization still existed, no new terrorist attacks, no financial collapse and no zombie apocalypse. We were safe from all of that at the moment anyway but we had to return at some point.

As we would catch up with family and friends we had to describe the epic landscape that stood before us. It was impossible to give it justice and we’d often forget to include thermal features and bison that were all around us. Normal.  

Lodge poles! Everywhere you went in the park there were lodge pole pines standing tall or toppled over. There were even huge stretches that looked like burnt toothpicks, charred from the wildfires of 1988 that effected 36% of the park.  

It’s like being stuck in a time warp with an infinite green and blue landscape that stretches to the horizon on either side of you. Flat for hours and hours until you cross another nameless river then, “wait! That must have been the Missouri, look at these fucking hills!” A little celebration then back at it for a tad longer until you enter the Cathedral like spires of Badlands and the tiny flat towns that surround it. 

We left the East Coast with the storms and middle America greeted us with the sun as we crossed the Mississippi. The Missouri was next, seven hours east with Interior and Badlands just a few hours past that. 

Mr Muuuuurty took us in for the night and showed us around the city the next day. Deep dish, records, buses, Calumet, and Columbia! 

At this point the bag we strapped to Ben’s car had caused major leakage/flooding all over ourselves and our possessions. We had cups set up to catch water as if a pipe broke in the kitchen and we were waiting for the plumber. 

We encountered a wild storm that was headed towards our past, an omen perhaps? I never really made that connection until now. Spirits were high, gas prices were dropping and it really felt like we were doing something. 

I had a couple rolls of Kodak EliteChrome developed recently and wham! there I was again driving out to Yellowstone with Ben. Through the rain to Chicago then across the vast flat lands of Iowa and South Dakota where I wasted about a dozen frames on the endless green fields and massive skies. We finally arrive at the park and begin our short stint in the ‘wilderness’ full of parking lots, meal plans, twisting roads, lodge pole pines, and dorm life. 

What is the feeling when you’re driving away from people, and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it’s the too huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-by. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.

          Jack Kerouac

I got a slew of tattoos before I left Niagara Falls since I knew I wouldn’t have extra cash for a while. Here you can see Jeffro hooking me up with a great Bison tattoo before leaving for Yellowstone. It’s impossible to find a more stoic and reverend animal on our continent. They are a source of inspiration that reminds me of the most amazing times in my life which helps through the most difficult. I couldn’t think of a better person to apply this to my skin.