
May 25, 2018
My annual spring trip to Yellowstone didn’t start until Memorial Day Weekend for the second year in a row. Other trips (in this case, our family trip to Ireland a few weeks ago) are preventing me from heading over as early as I’d like, but I’m still trying to fit in at least a week or so before the start of my photo tour.
Because it’s the holiday weekend, which entices hordes of visitors to Yellowstone, I once again chose to delay my arrival. With the intent of driving to Idaho on my first day, I started out from Seattle at 5:30am. Progress was slow. After only a couple hours on the road, I had to pull over to rest. This was my first solo road trip since last year’s marathon following the solar eclipse, but even so, normally I have plenty of gas in the tank before I need a break. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep the night before. Or I’m just old. Or I’m suffering from Exhausted Daddy symptoms. Most likely all three.
I tried to stay alert as I sped eastward. The surrounding landscape looked more green than normal. Maybe it was my later-than-normal spring start. It also looked more brown. Silty rivers were gushing and threatening to flood. And there was more orange: nearly twice as much road construction as normal, which slowed me down even more.
Late in the morning I received a text from a friend inviting me to make a detour to northwest Montana, where he and his fiancé had recently moved. I had not had a chance to visit yet, and I’m going to miss their wedding due to fall tour obligations. With no set schedule, I decided to change things up and went north off I-90.
Oh, and it may have helped that he had found a very photogenic fox den near his house...
Read the full trip report in my blog.
Max