Another roadtrip, but this one with a distant midway point, and a few parts of the country I’ve yet to visit. As I start writing this we are just packed for the return trip home starting tomorrow morning, the con wrapped yesterday and we had to ship some boxes back to meet us at home so we have enough room in the truck for the drive home. It will be a few heavy driving days, but we are trying to create a couple days to pause along the way, so six days to go from Chicago to Los Angeles by way of St Louis and Denver so we can traverse the Rockies again across the I-70. Following are some quick shots with the phone, several rolls of film to develop once I return home.
No roadtrip leaving from Los Angeles would be complete without at least one dystopic high-desert photo, and out stop for lunch just off the freeway on the south side of Mojave Park didn’t disappoint. It’s not even a used toilet, the cardboard packaging was slowly eroding off the pieces.
Mesa Verde National Park
The built communities of the Southwest , often referred to as Puebloan, have always fascinated me. There is a familiar strangeness, towns built with a plan, with excellent construction techniques that last centuries, but strange because of their environment. A beautiful strange, the smells of juniper forest, rabbit brush and snake brush, the xeric environments of the mesa tops contrasting the cool moist canyon bottoms. Whenever I get a chance, even if just passing by, I enjoy stopping and walking through these environments, thinking about what it was like living in these beautiful locations. There is a majestic splendor, and incredible amounts of communal labor, behind the creation and maintenance of these places.
The beauty that is Cliff Palace seen from above at oblique angle. The light was great for this moment at Square Tower House, we kept watching patches of light playing across the canyon walls. This moment of warm light really added some of the contrast needed to make the structures pop out from the walls.Oak Tree House from across the canyon framed through some junipers.
Telluride
It was a fun and crazy drive in the evening to make it from Mesa Verde to the beautiful frozen town of Telluride. It sits in a box canyon, the trial out of that end was trecherous so we didn’t attempt it, and is known as an arts festival and ski town. It was my first time visiting and was happily surprised that the shuttle around town and the gondolas were free in between the public areas in Telluride and Mountain Village.
The view from the bottom of the box canyon head just down the street from town. Plenty of snow, including the occasional drift blown up by the winds, and beautiful ice formations dusted with the blown snow along the cliffsides.Joaquin enjoying the views in our gondola trip from Telluride up and over the pass to Mountain Village.
Black Canyon of the Gunnison
The western United States is full of interesting geological features, and often the Rocky Mountains are overlooked as a singular monolithic geological feature, granite all the way down. But it is an amazing patchwork, and one of the most interesting patches for me is the Precambrian “basement rock” found in the Black Canyon. Inside the canyons, much like the piece in the foreground of the first image, are rocks ranging to 1,800 million years old. The Precambrian is one of the longer of the currently described geologic periods spanning from 4,500 million years ago through the development of life, plants, and multicellular organisms.
A close up in the foreground of the Precambrian rock that makes up most of the Black Canyon.A distant view where the visible uplift and vertical nature of some of the formations can be seen across the incredibly deep canyon with the Gunnison River flowing along the bottom and always audible from the cliffs.A long view of the interesting textures of the canyon walls with the Gunnison River far below.Our road trips are always full of adventure and interesting places, but also many fun moments like here when Joaquín decided to put a giant cone on his head (it was covering three short rusty bolts poking out of the concrete). One moment we’re wondering at the beauty of the landscape, thinking about lining up some angle for photographing him for his books, and the next we are laughing hysterically because of one cone placement.An iconic juniper in this park, plenty of beautiful cosplay photos here as well, but you’ll have to find them on his page.
A quick trip across South Dakota
A pronghorn antelope on the roadside in Custer State Park, SD.A herd of bighorn sheep resting in a field at Custer State Park.Bison tending to the grounds next to the cabins and Custer State Park office.The first glimpse of the Cathedral Spires, a nice pull-out with an eclectic collection of stickers.The next day, and on the other side of the state, we stopped off in Volga, SD to find my great-grandparents graves, Gilbert and Lizzy Dahlum at the First Lutheran Cemetery.An inscription on the back of a grave stone near my great-grandparents in Volga, SD, “Fred med du slovvelsignet ve re dil minde” (Peace be with you, may your memory be blessed).Some soup to warm up, some coffee for the road, and a short window to write down some thoughts at Cottonwood Coffee in Brookings, SD.
Minnesota
A wide overview of Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis, MN. This is one of those places that has held in my memories since childhood as a place I wanted to visit, waterfalls in the middle of a city, a tributary feeding the upper Mississippi River.Th water was still cascading over, and incredible icicles were formed up all along the edges, we were visiting in winter, event eh short walk from the parking lot was super slippery, and the upper walk was closed due to snow and ice, but we made it and it was worth it.A special brunch at Owamni, the restaurant created by Sean Sherman “The Sioux Chef” showcasing indigenous foodways in the heart of Minneapolis. It was delicious, and sharing multiple small dishes meant we had a chance to try a nice variety. The restaurant sits right on the riverfront next to what is now known as St Anthony Falls, but was known in Dakota as Owámniyomni (place of falling, swirling water), and where the restaurant gets it’s name.The water was still running and had created travertine looking ice formations at Gooseberry Falls State Park, MN. There was a cross country skiing trail from the parking area, but we just went walking in the boots we had.The river downstream from the falls had some beautiful geometric paterns from the freeze-thaw and dustings of snow in Gooseberry Falls State Park, MN.A view south from Tettegouche State Park a short walk form the visitor’s center looking at the radio tower on Palisade Head in the background and the outlet from Baptism River in the foreground.Down on a beach along the shore of Lake Superior at Tettegouche State Park, the sounds of waves crashing (soundscape recording below) and the views from the rocky shoreline were missing the smell of salt in the air, it felt so much like a beach along the Washington or Oregon coast.A short recording of the waves crashing on the rocky beach with pebbles rolling along the shore of Lake Superior in Tettegouche State Park, MN.
Wisconsin Along the Great Lake Shores
A pedestrian bridge over a gorge at a trailhead in Frog Bay Tribal National Park on the Red Cliff Reservation, WI.If you zoom in on this photo you’ll notice the curtains of icicles along the railings out on the docks, the lake spray had created layers of ice on all flat surfaces, and my husband decided to head out and see what it was like. Little Sand cove, Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, Red Cliff Reservation , WI.After a night near Green Bay we headed up the peninsula to Cave Point County Park with it’s beautiful dolomite and limestone ledges and caves along Lake Michigan.A lichen, possibly a type of Oakmoss, growing next to Lake Michigan in Cave Point County Park, WI.An impressive growth of Black Knot fungus, Apiosporina morbosa, on a tree in Cave Point County Park, WI.A last view of the dolomite and limestone ledges and caves, some submerged and the foreground covered in fresh spray from Lake Michigan at Cave Point County Park, WI.
Chicago
An intrusion by a deep one in the elevator column of our hotel.Our first morning out exploring Chicago before the con we came to for Joaquin’s books and fans. We started out right with Oromo Cafe in the Bucktown neighborhood, eggs and naan, and excellent Turkish coffee was a great start to a full day exploring Chicago.An cantilevering mechanism along a railway in Bucktown.Bean (Cloud Gate) vortex.Too much fun at the Cloud Gate.Cloud Gate with patterns of moisture hinting at internal design, situated in the Chicago skyline at Millennium Park.A view across the front of the column of Infantry with Beast, by Jane Alexander at the Art Institute of Chicago.A view from the front of the red carpet of Infantry with Beast, by Jane Alexander at the Art Institute of Chicago.And now, for something completely different… the view behind us from the front row of the MFF Con opening ceremonies.Putting the last touch on our table in the vendor’s halls, Agnargsilv (the mask of the canids) from Joaquín’s Noss Saga series.MFF Closing Ceremonies after booth breakdown and repacking.MFF Guests of Honor requesting appropriate props for the final group photo.A quick post sunset visit to the Arch in St Louis, MO since it was on the way home and I hadn’t seen it in person before.Driving into the forever sunset in Kansas.We stopped at Domo in Denver for some incredible Japanese country style food. It is an oporating dojo and makes food in the style the owner and dojo sensei remembers from childhood in Japan.So many lenticular clouds forming on our trip back over the Rocky Mountains, plenty of snow to make up for the lack of oxygen.The lenticular clouds never ended, just kept propogating, and the colors got better and better.Some Epic sunset cosplay for Joaquín’s books.One last view of the beautiful sunset at Wolford Mountain Reservoir before continuing along our way home.A couple guardian goblin sphinx at Goblin Valley State Park in Utah. If you are familiar with hoodoos these are formed by a similar geologic process.Some classic goblin formations up close at Goblin Valley State Park in Utah.A long view with Joaquín in the middle distance for reference.High up on a turn out from Utah SR-12 in Dixie National Forest, looking to the southeast the many high mesas of Valley of the Gods Monument can be seen in the far distanceOne of several beautiful arches along Burr Trail Road in southern Utah.The stratigraphy in southern Utah near Boulder, UT is impressive yet not on many people’s list of destinations with amazing vistas. A little bit of rain or melting snow can transform the muted palette into a vibrant alternate universe.Happiness is gyros and lap cats at the Mad Greek in Baker, CA.Thank goodness someone trained this human how to do the job correctly and allowed blissful purr filled napping.
Timothy Dahlum 