idaho // montana // wyoming

i love vacations,
lovelovelove them,
but this one was difficult for me.

the day i left i wept like a widow.
i felt like i was leaving so much,
like i had so much to do.
i just did not want to go.

on top of that,
i was a sickypants the whole time.
i had a dreadful cough and developed some pretty bad lung pain.
i wanted to go hiking, canoeing, the works,
but that severely limited my options.

my best friend on this vacation

the one time we were hiking,
and keep in mind that this was about 2 miles tops,
i had a bad cough attack and the force caused me to start vomiting my vitamin water all over the trail for a good 15 minutes.
twas embarrassing.

so there was a lot of sitting. leisure walking. lots of adventure time. lots of theater.

however, since i was forced to slow down, i think i really got a good opportunity to just take everything in.
lots of photographing the beautiful sights,
the likes of which i would like to share.
lots of them.
in a very unorganized fashion, mind you.

i started out with switching between instagram and my nikon, but in the end instagram won out.  lots lighter to carry. plus, the filters added to the seventies feel that was idaho/montana/wyoming.

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g h o s t // t o w n :

the town lawyer's bedroom

biggest house in the town

a group of men dressed and painted as black women

the father stepped away from the group while we were exploring and returned with an invitation to explore the building that housed the carriages. he took us back as far as we could go and requested silence, so we could feel the spirits of people working on carriages, coming to check on their horses, riding away into the town. it was eerie. the particular carriage pictured had some incredibly intense energy emanating from it. i could barely stand near it. it was as though someone was going to open the door and step down with their suitor and gallivant away... as though the carriage itself was whispering its own history to us. it was amazing.

y e l l o w s t o n e :

i'm not going to lie. i would frequently reach down to touch the water running from geysers or springs to see how hot it was.

me and ma dad

y e l l o w s t o n e via instagram :

a spring running into the river. the water upstream was significantly cooler than downstream. so cool.

ole faithful is better at dusk.

strangers from around the world

surreal.

i will own a van like this in the future.

 this was on the way back from the hike i mentioned above... 
on this particular hike, there seemed to be more people than usual. it was supposed to be a beautiful waterfall, though i'll never know, but this is likely why there were more tourists. it was overcast, yet warm. in the distance i could see a pregnant woman standing. just standing. she stood out among the running children and walking people, though no one really seemed to notice her.  as i got closer, i saw her eyes would close for a length of time and open again. she stood there, breathing deeply, holding her belly, watching the steam rise from the springs, letting the breeze move her hair off her shoulders. for the length of time she was standing there, i was mesmerized. it was as though she was pondering change, life. watching the water erupt from the center of the earth and subsequently holding even tighter the little life inside of her... just taking in how momentous her life is at that very moment, never noticing a girl watching her, standing just off the path. i am so lucky to have been there. if i hadn't gotten sick, i would have missed this. i will never forgive myself for not capturing her standing there at that moment, but i made sure to snap her post. it was one of the more beautiful moments in this world. i will never forget it.

e x h i b i t s :

an old music hall

definitely, DEFINITELY all the taxidermy. oh, but it wasn't just in the museums. it. was. everywhere. walk into a building, expect to see a dead moose starting at you. in fact, when we went out for dinner one night, we had a small buffalo, squirrel, and deer staring INTO our booth. oh, what a delight it was! this particular display really got me:

yes, those are little deer feets used on that rack.

t r y i n g // t o // s t a y // e n t e r t a i n e d :

tying flies and flyfishing

cooking with asseenontv products

exercising. or voyeurism. either one.

scrabble

talking

self-portraits

origami

lots...

...and lots...

... of doodling

doodling this caused the song to be stuck in my head for days, in addition to all the joseph and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat songs, seeing as how we saw that at the beginning of our trip. 

i couldn't decide if i missed adam or bruno more. i would call adam every day, flip if we didn't have cell service, text him at all times when we did, ask him to send pictures of bruno doing everything... i just missed them. adam was house-sitting for us and had to deal with a lot of heavy stuff, all the while staying positive and busy and happy. i even called him homesick one night, not knowing he had had a long day full of puppy poop and my often ostentatious brother, telling me to take deep breaths, calming me down somehow just by being adam reid. the boy managed to run through my mind all day, everyday without tiring. bless his dear soul.

e a t i n g // f o o d :

i have never seen an ice cream cone with so perfectly rounded scoops

ice cream every day

an adorable drawing in an ice cream shop

dropped my ice cream. of course

 i love food. it's not a secret. what i love more than food itself is eating food with people. and these people are pretty great to eat food with. even though, by the time we got to eating, our picnic would consist of soggy bread sandwiches, high calorie chips or crackers, and bruised fruit, it was still a bang-up lunch because of these guys.

okay, so at the bottom of a pringles can, there are tons of little broken up chips, right? 

right.

my dad poured out the can and dished out the remainder of the pringles according to size so that everyone had their fair share. i can still hear his voice going "one for you. one for you. one for you." over and over in my head. he stuck it out until the tiniest crumb was dished out. 

each little, teeny, tiny piece of chip in this picture was i served. {except the black things are seeds from the multigrain bread. disregard those.}

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 PHEW
this post took me hours.
two and a half of them to be exact.

but vacations must be documented.
i'm planning on keeping this blog forever and ever,
so i can come back and relive my 22 year old life again.

{HI FUTURE SELF!!!}

so i hope blogger never goes under. knock on wood.

i adore being with family,

being a stranger in a new place,

exploring the world. 

i love vacations.

yeah, i guess...

even this one.