Last Thursday, my sister and I woke early and began our long drive to Bozeman, Montana.

Many moons ago, I used to go on long family road trips from Texas to visit my father’s relatives in big sky country. While I’ve seen a few faces since then, it’s been at least 14 years since I’ve seen many of them on their home turf.

Numerous factors brought this trip about: my uncle from California was heading to Helena for an annual marathon; my other uncle wasn’t in jail, my father was able to get off work to meet them, I needed a place to live between Portland and Thailand, and my sister had room at her apartment, my sister also had a car just itching to be broken in, and my grandmother had a place for all of us to stay.

Opportunities like that happen only once.

The sister’s Hyundai was gassed up, stocked with jerky and water, and on the road by 6:30AM. Most of the morning drive was during desert rainstorms. By 1PM, we had made it to the suburbs of Denver, Colorado, to pick up my father who had flown in to avoid the first part of the drive. The first few hours until my father’s pickup went quickly, but once entering Wyoming the journey became eternal. The state is beautiful, but there is nothing but repeating scenery along the highway. By the time we rolled into Billings, it was nightfall. I was getting sleepy, but safely got us across the pass and into Bozeman. By 11:45PM, we pulled up the driveway to my grandmother’s house. For all 17 hours I was the driver. It was a crazy decision on my part, but I get nervous as a passenger on the highway. It’s not a high nervousness, but it means having a hard time relaxing for the journey. Instead, I chose to be exhausted by driving. But 17 hours is a pretty long time, both in distance and in stamina. I don’t know how my parents could make such long drives every year, especially with two small-bladdered kids in the back seat. Maybe they feed of our energy as shadow soul stealers.

The route (red is the return route):

Here are some photos of the trip:

The endless, green hills and open road of Wyoming.

A strange cloud formation in Wyoming. I expect God to hammer a square cloud into it any day now, if he’s capable.

Sunset on the dirt road my grandmother lives along.

The mountains as seen from her front yard. It’s a pretty ridiculous view at this time of day.

One morning, I walked along the trees planted as snow breaks at the edge of her property. Apparently, a deer had babies somewhere in there and I intended to find them. I did not.

But the mother eventually showed herself at the bird feeders in the backyard. She was systematically testing the rope for weaknesses. She remembers.

On Friday, we went to a construction site to pick up my uncle.

My father and uncle hauling supplies and watching their footing in the mud. My uncle hadn’t changed in the ten years I hadn’t seen him. Despite his incarcerations and hard living, he’s just as funny, friendly, and smart as I remember.

While my uncle got cleaned up for dinner, I sat outside his apartment and tried to get as close as possible to the Magpies.

That afternoon at my grandmother’s house, we had an early feast of homemade lasagna, salad and other vegetables. It was washed down with tea, pies, and coffee. Afterward we packed up the cars and drove and hour and a half to Helena to register for the race.

On the way through a neighborhood in Helena, we passed a family of deer eating a row of bushes. The people from Montana were quick to mention that the capital is infested with deer.

The starting line of the 5k race. My uncle was the only family member to tackle the full marathon. He started at 6 in the morning. Throughout the day, various races started. All finished at the same line, around the same time. My uncle brought an entourage with him from California. Combined with the rest of the family, we made a large racing group.

Aunt, sister, grandmother, and uncle.

Discarded water cups.

One of the judges staring out his apartment window.

My uncle, heading toward the finish line. He made it in 5 hours.

Someone who didn’t quite make it.

Three brothers and a mother: the core of Team Dauminator 75.

Orange slices at the finish line.

Back at the hotel, we had a surprise visit from my grandfather. I hadn’t seen him since I was a boy, and it was a little awkward at first. He’s a little bit like a living John Wayne: a tough, solitary man more comfortable around oil and cows than people. My sister, uncle and father ate dinner with him at a nearby restaurant. It felt a bit like a Chris Ware comic.

On the way out of Helena, we passed the bulk plant where my grandfather drove every day for 41 years to fill his fuel truck. I have vague memories of riding with him to this plant. Back then, we stopped to fill up the tanker and I ate some Pop Rocks.

A rollerskating pig eating a hot dog on a gas station sign.

That night, we got back to Bozeman. My uncle reserved a table at a lodge on the outside of town. The lodge overlooked snow-capped mountains and a small pond that stocked trout for the restaurant. Everyone’s meal was delicious, but heavy on the meat. I had a strip steak with vegetables and a salad. Others had duck, fish, and pork. But not rollerskating pork.

Sunday was a lazy day at my grandmother’s house. It started with a big breakfast and ended with a big dinner. Again, more meat around every bend. I ran around outside a little, kicking and punching a tennis ball. Early the next morning, we began our journey home.

Instead of heading back the same way, we decided to take a route that led through Yellowstone National Park. We entered through the North Entrance and left through the gates at the south end into Grand Teton National Park.
Cuss words cannot describe how beautiful the park is. But holy @*&#!

Mineral deposits and mountains.

A pack of bison wandering through the woods.

A herd of elk.

The closest we came to a bear. It’s in the center of the image.

One of the numerous shallow rivers flowing through beautiful valleys.

Chipmunk looking at me.

A large roaring waterfall.

More bison roaming in front of the smoking earth.

Scalding blue water of one of the Fountain Paint Pots.

A bubbling soup of minerals nearby.

Eagle sized black birds eating trash out of someone’s truck.

After my sister went to the bathroom and missed Old Faithful geyser, we headed south. When we reach the continental divide, the scenery became snowy. It was a whole other landscape.

A view of Yellowstone Lake, the largest mountain lake in North America.

My father and sister.

The foggy tops of the Grand Tetons loom ahead, as my father disobeys a warning sign and goes looking for bears.

As we got higher into the Grand Teton National Park, it started snowing. One section of mountain had collapsed onto the road and was being repaired.

A partially frozen stream.

A picture of the scenery as we waited for passage.

Within an hour of leaving the park, the landscape changed first into moist green woods, and then into weird ruddy badlands.

Rounding the bend.

It took forever to get to the interstate. The sun fading behind us. For hours, there was nothing but a view: no people, few cars, just us chasing the curve of earth as nothing more than a speck in its vastness.

I kept on driving.

Night fell and we rolled through Denver. We were all very sleepy. I was driving in a dream. We stopped at a motel to begin the journey again this morning. Now we’re back in Santa Fe.

Onward to Dallas and then Thailand and beyond!!!

I’ve spent 4 days in Denver. Most of trip has been in the suburbs, full of dry perfect weather, babies, dogs, and home cooked meals. Note: The babies and the food have not been dry, though. Time has been spent in homes and cars, living almost as extended family. Because of the trip, it’s been hard to realize that I’m no longer working. In part, because everyone wakes up early due to the baby. For the past four days, I’ve awoken earlier than I ever did for work, but that’s okay. For whatever reason, I’ve had some disturbing anxiety dreams and tooth grinding at night. But I hope it’s just my neurosis going through a phase shift.

Last night, I dreamt I survived a plane crash. I was walking back to my seat as the plane landed, but the gears never came down and the plane bounced and scraped along a city street as I held on to the framework of a seat I had fallen next to. When the plane came to a stop, I ran to the flaming rear to grab my wallet and camera before jumping out the door into the cold street below. I couldn’t find who I had been traveling with. My camera didn’t seem to work. Dreams like these are not the most comforting when you’re about to go on a long plane ride, but I’ll assume it’s not a premonition.

On a lighter note, photos and captions:

Airplane taking off while J. and I waited at the Denver Airport for her sister’s family to arrive.

Lone ground crew member drops his stick.

Mysterious dome shaped building with garage door along the highway. The truth is out there, Sculder.

Dumbshit out for a helmetless a joyride.

The Rocky Mountains.

Dead field mouse outside the house of J.’s uncle. This house is where we stayed. It’s about 45 minutes north of downtown, at the edge of farms and encroaching subdivisions. His was more of the old ranch house variety, a holdout among the hills of dry grass, agricultural and oil fields.

Rabbit sitting in the lawn, pretending not to notice me. The neighborhood was full of them.

It was also home to a large colony of prairie dogs. When I tried to get close enough for a photo, the standing sentries sounded the alarm and everyone ran for cover. This little guy remained outside.

Across the street from the prairie dogs, cattle were being herded by a dog. Bitch would run behind them, nipping at the ankles of those that fell out of line. I’ve never seen cows run as fast, or bitches.

The trophy room of J.’s uncle, a tribute to years of racing victories.

Big man contemplating big packs of beer inside Daveco Liquors. Daveco is the largest liquor store in the country. The size of a small grocery store, instead of food it’s stocked with vice and sin.

Thick hamburgers getting grilled for a filling dinner.

On Saturday, the group went to watch J.’s uncle race at the Interstate 76 dirt track about an hour east of Denver. The weather was sunny and mild. The track was dusty. The people were friendly, chunky, and a little sunburnt. Her uncle competes in the Modified class, but we watched many classes compete, from Mini Sprints to large Batmobile style Late Models. In this photo, her uncle waved the Colorado flag while waiting to enter the race.

J.’s uncle changing a tire between races.

His car number 46, in a powerslide orgy on the 4th turn. He placed 1st in the qualifier and 3rd in the main event.

Stock cars rounding the bend.

The dusty pit area behind the track near the end of the day.

Hand painted car number 80.

Later in the day, J tripped over a baby chair and broke her toe. Her brother helped bandage it.

Monday, we went to ride the Cog Railway to Pike’s Peak. Here are some stoplights along the way.

The railway starts in a small town outside of Colorado Springs. It’s the longest, highest and nearly the oldest cog railway in the world, and I presume the most expensive to ride. Tickets were $30 a person. Along the hour-long ascent, you pass by Aspen and pine forest, snowy waterfalls, reservoirs, and large granite boulders.

Above the tree line were high winds and tundra grass. The tracks can be seen on the left side of this photo.

A view of old ties and the valley below.

The train at the top.

Me, trying to not look like my ears were freezing off in the 14˚F wind.

After the long ride back home, we got out the telescope to look at the moon. This photo was taken through my camera however, further proving that the zoom lens I got rocks.

Long exposure of the machine shop.

J. inside, bottle feeding her niece.

On Tuesday, J. and I walked around downtown Denver. Not much photographable, but this abandoned store had a great sign. I guess the mop business isn’t what it used to be.

After spending a few hours at a coffee shop, we walked back to the car. Along the way, we passed by a hospital getting torn apart by a dinosaur like apparatus.

Time to get back to Stumptown.

Since Friday I’ve been at the South by Southwest (SXSW) digital conference in Austin, TX. A large group of people from work attended. Some were lucky enough to stay the week for the music and film festivals; I had to go back.

The flights into Denver and Austin were full of turbulence. The descent to the latter airport was especially full of cold sweat as the plane was visibly knocked around.

On the first afternoon, I met up with my father who was in town for an unrelated business reason. He timed his arrival to follow me into the hotel elevator like a fedora-wearing private eye. My mother arrived a few hours later, and we drove so the South Congress area for a pretty good Tex-Mex dinner. The meal consisted of three salsas, queso, chips, dual enchiladas (with rice and beans) and a margarita encrusted with scrumptious salt. My parents crashed in the hotel room that night. It was a Double Tree smoker’s suite, so you know that the accommodations were high-caliber* and spacious. In the morning, we had a light breakfast of mom-made banana bread and coffee while watching the pigeons and grackles on the balcony. The visit was too short, but it made me feel like I was home again.

I expected SXSW to be a sea of nerds, and pictured myself skipping around the convention center snapping portraits of the acned, bucktoothed and obese. Wrong. The attendees were more like the love children of comic book fans, programmers and hipsters. You could tell that many were smart, sociable, and possessing slightly rebellious attitudes. Not too rebellious or idealistic though, the $450 entry cost weeded those dreamers out. Readers of WIRED and users of Macs would feel at home. Most worked at companies of similar purpose and ridiculously vague, webby names like Teknet, MacroTrend, Zoomr, SocialAppz, Facebook, Folding Meadows, Paradigm Online, OmniFocus, FloosiBOOBS, Sabre Worlds, Graphimatix Courthouse, OpenDocs, Second Wife, etc. The internet gold rush is at version 2.0! Everybody’s a winner until it crashes again!

The conference began on a sour note due to a pointless presentation called “Design is in the Details.” It was moderated by some slick haired douchebag who was grossly unqualified to be an expert in design. But besides that, his presentation was uninteresting, wandering, and not to topic. At least ten minutes were spent with him describing food photos from some restaurant in Chicago and what he had in his backpack. Another ten minutes were spent showing examples of websites he had made for colleges while bullshitting about the creative process. It wasn’t that the sites were bad, they were just generic as hell. Plus, every “R” he pronounced as an “L.” He was the kind of designer who likes to look at design ploblems with flesh eyes befole diving in a tlying to solve them. Oh god.

About half of the presentations I attended during the conference had varyingly levels of pointlessness. Fortunately, all of the major keynotes were great. Of particular interest was the train wreck interview of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg by Newsweek writer Sarah Lacy. I got there late, so I had to sit in a side room’s simulcast. The interview started fine, though Zukerberg is no great speaker. But quickly things got awkward as Sarah became more flirtatious and self promoting in her questioning. The audience got raucous and had a few back and forth exchanges with the the interviewer that seemed very juvenile. We had different expectations for the event, asking the probing questions regarding privacy, valuation, and company details that Sarah seems fine to giggle past. There are plenty of posts on the internet with full details of how the event derailed. It was certainly memorable.

Most of the other presentations I listened to with half an ear and a computer on my lap. Free WIFI was provided, so even less interesting ones had the web as a distraction. On the weekend, a gaming area was set up for computer vendors and LAN tournaments. I killed time playing Team Fortress 2 and UT3 on highend computers. It was sad on Monday without the arcade.

Outside of event I mostly dined and hung out at the hotel. Much of group went out to sponsored parties, but I’m not much of a party animal, sponsored or not. I’d much rather sit in a room playing guitar, eating a snack, watching TV, and working on the computer. It’s a lame, comfortable feeling of being at home.

Here are a few photos from the trip taken on my fancy pants camera:

Crystal blue, but outrageously turbulent skies above the Austin airport.

Man on the street.

Parents.

Grackles watching for hawks from the railing of the hotel balcony.

Blocks dumped on the floor for people to play with.

V. waiting in the registration line.

Master Chief grabbing a stuffed dog for a photo op.

Gamers during a Counter-Strike Source tournament.

Speaker.

Hotel lobby.

Duck bobbing at sunset in the river.

Sunset at the river that the duck was bobbing in.

Attendees.

The abandoned hall the day after a bridal show.

Planners planning in the fading light of a Chili Restaurant.

A lame rip-off the the Chrysler Building.

Tree pods, tree pods, how many do I see? Three pods, or more pods, sitting on a tree.

Gas meter.

Animal in the gallows of a truck serving free icecream.

Capitol building.

I’m proud to announce that this goddamn blog’s formatting error in Camino and Firefox is fixed. The error manifested when too many images somehow jacked the rendering of the bottom of the page, making everything invisible. I couldn’t figure it out for a few months, but it ended up being just some issues in my style sheets. If the blog still looks weird, refresh your browser to cache the new css. Additionally, while I was messing with the templates I added text ads between posts as another experiment in monetizing my site. Hopefully, they aren’t too annoying. If you like, feel free to click a link and send some change my way. Just don’t click them too much.

*The Double Tree Hotel was likely a nice hotel in the 80s, but it doesn’t age well. The service was great, but the price was high, the style outdated, and the rooms a little sketchy. My suite was huge, with a full kitchen. Its generic, institutional feeling was heightened by weird fixtures, crazy patterned furniture and a fridge that had trouble closing. I highly recommend this hotel chain for all your lodging needs.