Tag: featured

How can I possibly say anything about California? I spent the first 22 years of my life aching to leave it, and now every time I go back I ache to stay. Is that the definition of home? Or at least the definition of origin? There is something wrenching and twisting and full of tears … Continue reading impressions of california (june 8-17, 2019)

Oregon is a greatest hits of Cascadian geography: you get the ocean, you get the forests, you get the rivers, you get the fields full of elk. You get a buffet plate of the outdoors, a little of everything. What does it mean to love the outdoors? I’ve thought this at every national park where … Continue reading impressions of oregon (june 7-8, 2019)

I think a lot about Lewis and Clark in Washington, and not in a cute way. I think about the role they took in making a map of a vector West, and the cost of that vector to the people who didn’t need to be explored or documented or displaced for years to come. I … Continue reading impressions of washington (june 5-7, 2019)

Holding a chicken is something I never knew I wanted until I was presented with the opportunity, and holding a copper chicken named Nugget who pecks at shiny things and loves attention does not disappoint. Holding her domed rib cage, her large fan of a wing resting on my hand, was bliss. Idaho is full … Continue reading impressions of idaho (may 30- june 1, june 5, 2019)

I’m sure I’m going to love Montana. And when I don’t, I realize it doesn’t give a shit either way. Outside of Yellowstone, everything ushers you into the park, and once outside of that, there seems to be a collective shrug, like that wild freedom may as well not exist. There are farms and ranches … Continue reading impressions of montana (june 3-5, 2019)

The first time I see pronghorn, it’s like we’ve been blasted to another continent. Space more enormous than Texas ever looked, scrubby mountains covered in willows, with these golden hinds running for what could be miles without seeing a human. It makes my cells sing, and so my mouth does, as we blaze through at … Continue reading impressions of wyoming (may 28-29, june 1-3, 2019)

What I see driving into Utah is some type of god-sent or Hollywood-directed rainy weather. The mountains, jutting up and looming over the ribbon of road leading to the Great Salt Lake, are shrouded in gray, and as we pull around their side, the city is gleaming in the sun. Like maybe this really is … Continue reading impressions of utah (may 29-30, 2019)

South Dakota – who are you? I looked really hard and I tried to make out the shadow of a face but I couldn’t find your eyes and I couldn’t find your nose and there were no shoulders to be found not even the slight curve of a chin. Despite the men carved into your … Continue reading impressions of south dakota (may 26-28, 2019)

My cousin told us that she has always had the Tinder bio “666 kill your parents 666”, and this is, of course, a joke. She loves her parents, and has no intention of killing them. It’s her way of indicating a dark sense of humor, a childhood as a little punk, rebellion. This bio served … Continue reading impressions of minnesota (may 25-26, 2019)

This whole trip we’ve been asked where we’re from. We’ve heard the question so many times, we don’t know what it means anymore. But there is an answer, and as we get closer to it my body buzzes and I start being unable to stop talking. It’s recognition. It’s the rolling, lined-paper fields, the big … Continue reading impressions of iowa (may 22-25, 2019)