Travel Log - Day 1: It begins! My sis is getting married in NY and the “Man-Maid” of Honor (that’s me) will be there, Covid be damned. I will be driving and camping at national parks along the way. Stay tuned...

6 weeks ago my friend and rebuilt the engine in my 14 year old jeep by ourselves. 3000 miles to NY. What could go wrong?

And please don’t worry about me. I grew up in the suburbs of NYC so I should be totally fine completely by myself camping in the wilderness

Update - Entering NV and AC wont work. Something must be loose from those 2 “mechanics” tinkering under the hood. Will investigate later. But now onward, thru the desert. In June. Mid afternoon. Good thing the top comes off! Gonna leave NV looking like Doug from the Hangover

PLOT TWIST - IT’S RAINING. Does this happen in the desert in the summer? Whatever I don’t care it’s a miracle

Day 1 in the books. Arrived earlier this evening in Boise, where my friend’s family has been kind enough to host me before I head off into the wilderness. So far Idaho seems gorgeous and less excruciatingly hot than Nevada so things are looking up

I figure bears can’t swim so I spent most of the afternoon in the middle of this lake

Day 3: First night of camping in the books. I did not get eaten by a bear, but I VASTLY miscalculated how cold it would get in the middle of the night. Going to focus on the former, the latter is fixable

Brekkie!

Climbed the hill next to my camp site

Scenes from today’s trail run/hike/snow slosh/rock scramble adventure. Idaho has rainbow clouds. Like what even is this place what kind of wizardry happens here

Met this badass older couple on the trail. Convo went like this - “So where do you work?” - “I work at Twitter!” - “No way, so does our niece! She’s in international security” - @Susher18 your aunt & uncle are the coolest!

I never do selfies except for that one time I met Archie Manning but anyway I’m by myself so it’s selfies or nothing so here’s a selfie of me in front of this mountain being reflected in a lake and stuff

And here it is without my stupid face. Never thought I’d be so sad to leave Idaho, but onward to West Yellowstone (apparently “hardcore grizzly country)! I’m terrified of bears but I have bear mace and watched a youtube vid of a ranger showing how to use it so everything’s fine

Well day 4 was quite a day. Spent all day in Yellowstone (pics to follow) until well after sunset. Got back to camp at 1030, made a fire and started cooking dinner over said , and that’s when I saw the first lightning bolt. No thunder, maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me

But there it was again. And then the thunder, a low rumble at first. Then light rain. Then another flash and more thunder. I JUST started cooking dinner!

The rest was a blur - the storm slowly intensified I scrambled maniacally in the dark to finish cooking, eat (inhale), fully put out the fire ( safety yall), clean up every last scrap (bear safety yall), and dove into my a split second before the heavens unleashed their fury

Anyway here are some phone pics from the park. The light wasn’t very good for most of the day until golden hour, at which time I went nuts with my DSLR, those will have to wait

Here’s a video of this bison causing a traffic jam

Here’s a video of these elk hanging out at sunset doing nothing

Here’s a video of these wolves running around in front of this mountain just before dark

And here’s a selfie of me in front of this broken fire hydrant – bei Old Faithful Geyser

OK! It’s still raining in the park so I’m outta here. Off to South Dakota

Status update/obligatory jeep pic

Last night’s campsite off the beaten path in Black Hills SD next to a delightful rushing creek, which is great because this place is absolutely terrifying at night. Pitch black. That creepy low misty fog from horror movies. So many things “rustling.” 5 stars never coming back

Current status - It is precisely 100 degrees at this gas station in Rapid City, SD. I still do not have AC

OK today was great and retro updates will come, but right now we need to talk about the insane lightning storm happening in the Badlands near my campsite (I’m completely safe I promise, it’s passing me by). Here is some footage of what is happening 270 degrees around me

Hi here’s another selfie of me in front of another mountain yesterday, this time it’s a group selfie

Here’s yesterday’s fun camp site in a prairie dog town in the Badlands. Little did I know this one also has a terrifying alter ego at night. Sensing a trend with South Dakota

Here’s another bison traffic jam, this time in the Badlands. I think all bison go to driver’s school in California because they don’t know basic rules of the road

Here is the “bad lands” part of the Badlands, with more wildlife because they’re my only friends

And here’s a nice bighorn sheep fellow munching on a sunset snack. And this concludes the positive portion of today’s update

So that insane storm continued all night and brought relentless gale force winds, keeping me awake straight through til sunrise in a panic constantly adjusting the stakes and guy lines to keep the tent from hurtling itself and me into the Land of Oz

This is good bc I wanted to wake up at sunrise anyway to take this nice video, after which the Jeep would not start. 2 hours later, covered in grease, I discovered that the bone shaking unpaved road to the campsite had rattled loose my teeth & also the the starter connection

Easy fix, and now on 48 hrs no sleep I am finally on my way out of the scorching windy dusty electrically charged ruggedly beautiful hellscape that is South Dakota. On to northern Minnesota!