As I was driving alone cross-country this past June I had some incredible experiences.

• I accidentally drove a fully loaded moving truck with car and trailer in tow through an agricultural field at 4am in the middle of Arkansas – at full speed.
• I had a full-grown buffalo run at me full-tilt while keeping a steady hand on my camera’s shutter.
• I saw my first cornfield.
• I stayed a night in the town where Jesse James was killed.
• I shivered on the ground next to the truck all night halfway up a mountain while listening to wolves and was so cold that I didn’t care if they ate me.
• I actually said aloud that “I’m not in Kansas anymore” after crossing a state line (ok, ok – I was jacked up on Starbucks and delirious at the time)
• I saw what it really means when the Missouri River floods and even the Interstate system shuts down.
• I saw the Rocky Mountains for the first time.
• I experienced a real desert for the first time and searched for rattlesnakes and photographed various cacti in flower.
• I went mountain biking in Iowa and Colorado and had a blast!
• I passed through several towns that were absolutely devastated by a series of massive tornadoes.
• I got mobbed by a pack of thieving ground squirrels in Montana.

This list goes on and on….

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Then just when after a week of full-on constant new-experience-overload that I thought nothing could amaze me like the wild experience the hour before, I turn the corner and see this view of beautiful snowy mountains reflected in a crystal-blue lake on a gorgeous summer day in the Grand Teton National Park in northwestern Wyoming. Even now just thinking about it, the memory of the grandeur of the landscape just blows my mind.