Passed through Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley with my daughter on a 2,000 mile drive, part of that peculiar American institution of the college tour road trip. We cut through a corner of the park on a snowy November morning…
…and while I prefer the backcountry to the highway pullouts, and I while know Yellowstone has issues that range from development at its borders to exclusion of native peoples, wildlife conflict and hoards of carbon-guzzling tourists…
…there is still something miraculous and sublime where the edge of the asphalt meets wildness and you can gape at wonders out the car window. Drive-by wilderness as roadside attraction has a sort of magic all its own…
…and as Bailey leaned out to make photos of insouciant bison and a coyote with a game leg and hungry stare, the industrial and primordial ecosystems merged, herds converging—camera-wielding vultures and wooly beasts—in a land of tarmac and steaming meadows poised for the uncertainty of winter.
The Dilettante's Field Manual 