ALMO, IDAHO
There may not be another soul in the modern world who could say, "I can't wait to get to Idaho" with as much as excitement as I do. As I near the end of "collecting all the states" as it were, my excitement grows more intensely. Semi-unbeknownst to my travel companion, Kaitlyn, I insisted on renting a car and driving up the land of potatoes. I regale her with useless facts that (bless her) she pretended to care about (Idaho is one of the very few places in the world where every known gem has been discovered!!!), but my enthusiasm must've rubbed off on her because she eagerly snap-chatted our entrance into the state.
What we discovered was a, in a sense, a new planet. Distant mountains with the most marvelous rock formations. It was a landscape that I had never seen before, but was completely enthralled by. We walked through fields of sage, surrounded by the most pleasant smell amongst an endless spectacle of mountains, with rock arrangements seemingly plopped from the sky. I'm sure there's a simple geology lesson for me out there, but for now I'm still reveling in the surprising but arresting landscape of Idaho.
GROUSE CREEK, UTAH
"This is the road to nowhere."
I'm not sure how we ended up on the road to nowhere, or even how it came up on our GPS, but we followed the endless, winding dirt road for 30+ miles through the Utah desert. Twists and turns through the mountains, past small, neglected towns on an boundless dirt road. Despite the potholes and minor panic attacks on the dings of our rental car, it was magical. A perfect exploration of the undiscovered wild west.