It’s funny the little things you take for granted. Finding myself out east this summer, I’m having to content myself with reminiscing my way through the photo archives and writing about adventures in the West, about great rivers and mountains, sunrises and sunsets, bears and moose and wolves.
Spent the afternoon yesterday photographing a large regional horse show, wading through seas of city folk in popped collars and waffled shorts. It simply made me more homesick for Carhartts and cowboy boots, for muddy waders and Tevas so old the velcro has begun to give. For folks who measure the day by how much they got done using their hands rather than by the performance of their stock portfolio.
One of the most important things we can do these days is to simply unplug; to get away from the computers and the iPhones. To ditch social media and blogging and the web now and again. It’s a fine balance—that’s how some of us make a living—but that, perhaps, makes it all the more important to get outside and leave it all behind sometimes.
Personally, I find there is no better place to unplug than in Yellowstone country outside of tourist season. The fall is high time; colors are rich, mornings are crisp, and the herds of annoying-as-hell tourists have gone back to their lives in the city. It’s the local’s time, when you run into old friends in the West Yellowstone grocery store; when you can swing soft hackles in the Firehole and not sorry about tourists stopping and asking where they can find the bears.
There’s something gloriously wild about Yellowstone country, something that feeds creativity like kindling to a fire. It’s a place you can still lose yourself; a place where you can get away from the trials and tribulations of daily life and actually get down to the wonderfully dirty business of living.
Ironic that one of the nation’s most highly-trafficked tourist locales can be a place for such escapism. But looking beyond the touristy trinkets, the tired park rangers, and the seasonal minivans filled with screaming children, it’s still a pretty damn special place. And, yeah, I guess the local’s prerogative but comes into play… I would give quite a bit right now to find myself chasing forest fires and fishing and hiking in the home places out West, but it seems that Jake is more than making up for the both of us at the moment.
The point of today’s tangent is this: get outside. Go play, go work, go unplug. And if you’re lucky enough to make it into Montana and Wyoming, put the damn cell phone down. Don’t update Twitter or Instagram or Facebook.
Just be.
