Northern Road Trip

August 2007: This is the first of a three-part gallery chronicling my Northern Road Trip (NRT) with Kristina Caggiano and Manuchehr Taghizadeh-Popp. Starting alone in Chicago, I walked Michigan Avenue and paid my first visit to the famous Superdawg hot dog eatery. After quick passes through Milwaukee and Madison, Wisconsin, we spent time in St. Paul/Minneapolis where we toured both downtown and the areas near the Mississippi River where the Route 35 bridge had collapsed just days before. Particularly memorable was the conversation we had with some homeless people who had lived under the bridge and who told us that they knew the collapse was imminent. Next, we made the LONG journey into the northern Minnesota wilderness to Boundary Waters, a leave-no-trace preserve that required a two hour canoe ride through illness to get to our lake. This gallery ends with images of Fargo, North Dakota, the sunflower fields of the central Dakotas, Wind Cave’s unique boxwork features, and the incomparable Badlands, the otherworldly landscape where mountains seem to rise straight out of the plains. Photos of mountain goats climbing the hills during a spectacular sunset remain some of my favorite to this day.

August 2007: This is the second of a three-part gallery chronicling my Northern Road Trip (NRT) with Kristina Caggiano and Manuchehr Taghizadeh-Popp. After departing Wall, South Dakota and its famous (and massive) drug store, we drove to Custer State Park, where the buffalo (and birds, prairie dogs, deer, donkeys, etc.) roam. On the northern edge of the park lies the gorgeous Sylvan Lake which offers opportunities for swimming and hiking through a striking rock valley. We paid an obligatory visit to Mt. Rushmore, paid our respects to national legends in Deadwood, and attended the world’s largest motorcycle rally in Sturgis. On our way to Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park, we passed by Devil’s Tower and through the most spectacular lightning storm I’ve ever had the privilege to photograph. The gallery concludes with photos of our passage through dry, wildfire-ravaged regions.

August 2007: This is the third of a three-part gallery chronicling my Northern Road Trip (NRT) with Kristina Caggiano and Manuchehr Taghizadeh-Popp. After a quick pass through Billings, Montana, this gallery starts with a collection of the weird and wild mudpots, geysers, fumaroles, and chance encounters that only Yellowstone National Park can provide. Having raced through all of Yellowstone in a single day, we arrived at a preserved ghost town, Virginia City, in the wee hours of the night. Not to be defeated, we toured the town in the dark and learned about its history with Rudy, the town’s barkeep and general store operator. We made a couple quick stops in Missoula, Montana, Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, and the old silver mining town of Wallace, Washington, not far outside which a beautiful old red metal footbridge caught my eye. The trip concluded with a visit to Vancouver and its University of British Columbia and a boat tour of the San Juan Islands, where a pack of Killer Whales got closer to my boat than I could have ever hoped.