Wall Drug: Most Important Thing I learned about America

Wall Drug
is the most important thing I learned about America

I, and three of my friends (who have a pretty awesome band that you can check out at www.myhappydeath.com, by the by), recently road tripped across America. Moving from Long Island, NY to Portland, Oregon. Over the stretch of 3,000 miles and more, there's a few things you learn about this land. Like, the thousands upon thousands upon thousands of acres of corn and soy beans poisoning our soil; even if you've seen King Corn, you just can't put it into perspective until you drive past it all yourself. And yet, how beautiful this world is; and, how insanely large it is, humbling to see blue sky in all four directions and mountains in the distance. And Wall Drug.

I apologise in advance that this gallery is nearly 50 of the couple hundred photos I took. Altogether I shot thirteen rolls of expired Kodak Elite Chrome 100 with my Pentax K1000, three rolls worth of slides I still need to have scanned, which include photos from Mount Rushmore. I sold my Canon 5D Mark ii and gear prior to pay for the move, and I don't regret it. The photos are out of order of the trip, so I'm Tarantino'ing it and will try to caption all of the photos so that it's more interesting to scroll through, I hope...

last visual of my room at my parent's home

racing against a storm to the badlands

sunset after a lightning storm in the badlands

i believe this happened in wyoming

close-up of michael during sunset in badlands

full shot of michael during sunset in badlands

i believe this structure was at a rest stop as soon as we entered wyoming

in a safeway near columbus, ohio; my, look at that beer selection

this could be idaho, i really don't recall, but it looks cool

impending doom within the badlands

in the idaho section of bear lake; probably one of the best stops we made

don't recall where this gas station was, but ryan was getting fit

more doom rolling to the badlands

still chillin' at bear lake

there's a lot of rolls of hay all over; also, not tilt-shift

i heeded that warning, with great haste; also, i'm sure there's more wall drug billboards on that highway than photos i took altogether

so tiny, so insignificant

oh my god, double rainbow in the badlands, it was almost a triple rainbow, too!

farm life

more michael in the badlands

idaho again? very steep roads

and the interior of that tunnel; poltergeist should have taught us to not go into the light, oh well.

pretty

some rest stop, get that low angle cloud texture

because 1/2000th shutter speed in water at sunset at bear lake is boss

looks cool

also looks cool

at a rest stop in some state near the west; there was a cool hike trail that went down the hill-side, too

cheapest camping accessory

same rest stop with the whole band

yeah, bear lake

at that rest stop still

dam along the gorge; isn't it gorge-ous?

gotta' use that sunset key light

lots of people were kite surfing in the gorge

michael with buddy, a dog

best move for the money

mount hood, straight ahead

bear lake

mhm, that vegetation

shoryuken!

that sticker now lives on my laptop, in case i forget

no, it doesn't get old

the moment of stress and manliness after blowing a tire in the middle of iowa

nomnomnom

jeffrey washing his delicates

actually, we were drying our clothes after they got soaked in the badlands because of the ridiculous lightning storm that lasted all night, the rain was whipping so hard it was spraying through the tent material