Posts tagged “wyoming

Stuck

Posted on 23 December 2021

This is about where I didn’t go as much as where I did go. Landscapes shifted drastically over space but comprehension remained steady. I knew how to interact. I understood everything. I threw myself into a vast land, I hauled myself into higher altitudes, I walked between rocks that reached up to the sky and, still, there was always a sense of familiarity. A part of me reaches for the total unknown. I want to be submerged in that which I do not recognize or understand. I want to be overwhelmed, bombarded with novelty. I miss different languages, different cultures, different buildings streets rules stores food almost everything. As much as we, humans, fuck each other and much else over, I suppose sometimes I…

The Crowded Wild

Posted on 21 September 2015

The photos may convey an untamed wilderness, but that’s not really the case – at least in these spots. On the Fourth of July, hoards of people descended upon Yellowstone’s lodges, its sprawling parking lots, its shops. With our car packed full to the windows with the last items of our prolonged cross-country move, we navigated our way through the park, winding around RVs, trying to see what we could, while we were there. I can’t begrudge the other people, who were doing something similar to what we were – though I will project negative energies at those who strolled off the walkway in places clearly labeled Sensitive Ground, Stay on the Trail. A national park is a funny thing. Wilderness preserved and displayed in this…

The Shock of What’s Real

Posted on 7 September 2015

The magnificent Grand Tetons faced us on the road and I faced them right back, unwilling to look away. As we crossed into the national park, a moose balefully stared at the crowds huddling along the banks of the river, in whose cold water the moose was sheltered. I looked around balefully too, shying away from the hot dog toting crowds. I wanted to get out and camp in the mountains’ shadow, not sit under the eaves of a park convenience store. Feeling mildly claustrophobic, we drove past the already-full tent-only campsite, aiming for another at the far north of the park. A more serene scene greeted us: a spot on the edge of the campground, bordered by a lake and hedged in by…

Disappear into Earth

Posted on 31 August 2015

When I travel, I revel in the crazy encounters, in the soft souls that hold me for a time. And sometimes, I revel in their absence. Wyoming. It’s vast. The sky pools overhead and the hills undulate on and on and on, spotted with scrub, never quite hiding how far the landscape can stretch. For all the millions of people in this country, it still has its empty places. I peered out of the car windows, looking for prairie dogs. We stopped in a small town, population less than a hundred. A visitor information office sat sentry, housing maps for the nearby national forest. We were given our directions, and water from the house out back, from an enthusiastic and helpful lady. I pet…