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		June 3, 2002 - Austin, TX to Roswell, NM
		As the proverb goes, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. At about 9:00, I stepped out of Trudy's mexican restaurant and into my car, and proceeded to drive West for the rest of the day. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the speed limit on I-10 starting at Junction was 75, which meant I could actually finish the day's trip with daylight left over. After burning up the highway through Ozona (left) to Ft. Stockton, I turned North and cruised to Roswell. 553 miles.
		June 4 - Roswell, NM to Moab, UT
		When you drive for 11 hours, you can actually see the changes in topography across the country. I left Roswell, crossed a bunch of barren, flat, empty desert, headed through the mountains across the continental divide, went back down into the desert, and finally stopped in a landscape that looked like it belonged in the Coyote and Roadrunner cartoons. The 4 corners area was actually really cool, except for the annoying vendors trying to sell you stuff. 591 miles.
		June 5 - Moab, UT to Pocatello, ID
		I realized while talking to my dad on Tuesday night that my hotel was 5 miles from Arches National Park. Wednesday morning, I stopped there on my way to Idaho. After a 15 mile drive through the wilderness and a 1.5 mile hike over burning sandstone in the burning sun, I made it out to Delicate Arch (left), which is probably the most-photographed arch in the entire state. It's on Utah's license plates, if that does anything for you. But it was cool to see one of our landmarks, and I enjoyed the chance to get out of my car and get some exercise for a change. I stopped in Pocatello that night, which is home to Idaho State University. College towns are all amazingly alike. 395 miles.
		June 6 - Pocatello, ID to Philipsburg, MT
		1839 miles later, I finally made it. I pulled into Philipsburg at about 2:00, unloaded my stuff, had some lunch, and turned right around and went out to a ghost town with the rest of the gang. Garnet, MT used to be a mining town, but now it's empty. The park service preserves it, and all the buildings have some vintage artifacts in them. Getting there, however, requires that you drive 10 miles down a logging trail which winds up and down the sides of several mountains. 298 miles.
		June 7 - Granite, MT
		Today we visited Granite, MT (yet another ghost town). So far Montana is a really, really really cold state, even in June. I'm getting used to my slightly cramped, yet cozy accomodations in Dennis's converted barn, and it's nice to be around fellow photojournalism students from UT after spending 3.5 days driving by myself. The scenery around here is beautiful, though, and it's kinda cool to be somewhere so foreign.
		June 8 - Drummond, MT
		It snowed today. And not just a couple of random flakes -- it was actually coming down thick enough to make the average Texan like myself think he had landed smack in the middle of a blizzard. Fortunately we left the snow behind when we left Philipsburg for Drummond, where they were having the annual Mule Festival. This was our first real assignment, and our pictures will form a page in the Philipsburg Mail (the local newspaper) early next week. I'm really glad that I brought some boots and a warm jacket, because they saved me from dying a very painful frostbite-ridden death today.
		June 9-10 - Snowbound
		The snow that started and briefly stopped on Saturday came back with a vengeance on Sunday. It snowed all day, but warmer temperatures kept it from sticking for the most part and melted the flakes before they hit the ground during the day. The skies opened up on Sunday night, the snowline descended, and I woke up on Monday morning to 6 inches of snow on the ground. Foolish photo students that we were, we decided that it would be a good idea to drive to the outskirts of town and photograph some abandoned industrial equipment. As I write this, it's Monday evening, and the snow is still falling. 12-24 inches were forecast above 6,000 feet, but we're just above 5,000 in Philipsburg. We've been watching movies and hovering around the couple of space heaters we have, but the snow should let up tomorrow.
		June 11 - No more snow!
		As the other proverb goes, "If you don't like the weather, just waitaminute and it'll change." This morning, I was greeted by nice 60 degree weather with partly cloudy skies. We decided to drive over to Butte to get some real groceries (the local grocery store doesn't have a credit card machine and ran out of eggs). I have probably never been so happy to see a Wal-Mart in my entire life. This evening, I decided that it would probably be a good idea to take some photos at some point today, and I also remembered that I hadn't taken any pictures of Philipsburg. So behold Philipsburg, Montana in all its 900-person glory.
		June 12 - Virginia City and Nevada City, MT
		Our longest excursion so far was today's trip to Virginia City and Nevada City, where Little Big Man was filmed. The towns were left in vintage 19th century form after the movie was completed, and now they basically form two very effective tourist traps. Some of the stuff was interesting, but the length of the drive was a bit excessive. Then again, the drive was made much more excessive by the fact that there was a massive rockslide on Highway 1 early this morning, so we had to take a 40 minute detour down some scary dirt roads. But hey, now I can say that I stood where Custer made his last stand.
		June 13 - Fishing
		Today was a nice break. After waking up rather late, I made some phone calls and let people know I was still alive, then ventured to the laundrymat to wash my clothes. About 5:00 or so, Adi and I wandered off to go fishing. We finally found a decent spot on our 3rd try, but didn't catch anything. The light on the mountains was beautiful though, and it was a nice chance to relax and slow down for a while. Tomorrow we'll be back to shooting normal assignments.
		June 14 - Porters Corner, MT
		My next assignment for the Philipsburg Mail was to shoot a picture of Porters Corner, the dance hall where various musicians got their start until it closed down in the mid 70s. The most famous former resident was Charlie Pride, the country singer. Larry Meek, the current owner, plans to tear the building down in a few months because it's deteriorated to the point that it's unsafe. After I left Porters Corner, I went for a nice relaxing drive down the extremely fast highways of Montana and did some fishing in Drummond.
		June 15 - Rock Creek, MT
		Last night was excellent at the White Front Bar -- the Big Sky Boogie Boys were playing some pretty good covers of a wide range of songs (from Lyle Lovett to Lynrd Skynrd to Santana), and everyone from town came down to have a good time. Our clan had fun mingling with the folks from Project Vote Smart and various locals. After a slight recovery period that lasted until lunchtime or so, I ventured out into the Montana wilderness in search of things to photograph with my 4x5. Rock Creek, in Western Granite County, made an excellent subject -- except that I arrived in the middle of an insect hatch, and was utterly devoured by mosquitoes. And we're in a Montana Heat Wave now, with temperatures in the high 70s.
		June 16 - Skalkaho Road, MT
		I spent a good part of the day dodging thunderstorms while continuing my search for scenery around Granite County. I particularly enjoyed seeing a farmer's irrigation system going with giant stormclouds in the background. As I write this tonight, the lightning is dancing all around and the rain is coming down rather heavily. We were supposed to do some fishing today, but we'll do that tomorrow when it's not raining. Also of interest was a place that will let you pan for sapphires, which I'll check out again tomorrow.
		June 17 - Gone Fishin'
		As promised, we went over to Gem Mountain to search for sapphires this morning. It was all kinds of fun, and I even got some sapphires out of it. Mary managed to get two 1-carat cuttable sapphires, and the 5 gallon bucket of gravel was $10, which we split. Can't really beat that. This evening, Dennis took us on a fishing excursion, and I found myself back at Rock Creek, only this time with a fishing rod in hand instead of a camera. Behold, the cheesy group photo.
		June 19 - Lost Creek State Park, MT
		So we were supposed to go to Glacier National Park yesterday. The weather didn't exactly cooperate. I drove through blustering winds and blinding rain as far as about Missoula, where we decided that it wouldn't be that much fun camping in freezing wet weather. I also determined about that time that one of my tires was going flat, so I got that fixed, we got some lunch, went to Wal-Mart, and visited the Big Sky Brewing Company (manufacturer of Moose Drool). Back in Philipsburg the weather wasn't really much better, but the weather forecast said it was snowing up in the mountains at Glacier where we would have been (it's on the Canadian border). Today, I went down to Lost Creek State Park by Anaconda, and did some more sapphire mining.
		June 19 - Sapphire Mining
		We had too much fun looking for sapphires a couple days ago to not go back. This afternoon, we returned to Gem Mountain to continue our plundering of the local sapphire stash. I ended up with 3 cuttable sapphires, weighing in at 2 carats or so, but Mary outdid us all, bringing back 14 carats of sapphires. The weather finally cleared up this afternoon, so we may try our camping adventures again later this week.
		June 20 - Bannack, MT
		In what will probably be our last Montana Ghost Town adventure, we drove down to Bannack State Park today to see what we could find. Much like Granite and Garnet, Bannack is an abandoned mining town that is now maintained by the state. It was the largest by far, and the hotel operated until the 1940s. On the way there, we passed through Beaverhead National Forest, which was most insanely beautiful, and full of campsites with no one in them. We may go camping there after we get back from the re-enactment of the battle of Little Bighorn, east of Billings, which we're headed to on Saturday.
		June 21 - Helena, MT
		I wandered over to Helena today while the girls were off horseback riding -- mainly because I needed an oil change, but also because I'd never been there. After getting some lunch and a new infusion of Quaker State, I stopped by the Montana State Capitol to see how it stacked up to ours in Texas. It was actually pretty nice inside, after its recent remodeling. The tour guide informed us that it was all covered in beige paint, cubicles, and flourescent lighting during the 1960s, and was only recently restored to its early 20th century glory. A nasty thunderstorm rolled through tonight, but it gave us a nice sunset.
		June 22 - Custer's Last Stand, Part I
		Adi and I got up far too early this morning and drove 330 miles east to Hardin, MT where we caught the re-enactment of the Battle of Little Bighorn, which is where General George Armstrong Custer made his famous last stand. Just as the battle was finally getting going after a late start, a thunderstorm moved in and the rain started. Not wanting to get our cameras rained on, we left immediately. There's another re-enactment tomorrow though, so we'll go back and check it out. I also rather enjoyed getting a chance to see the Longhorn baseball team win the national title today, and recognizing a bunch of photographers in the throngs of media after the game. Go 'Horns!
		June 23 - Custer's Last Stand, Part II
		The weather decided to play nice today. After a late breakfast, we drove back out to Hardin to catch the finale performance of the re-enactment, where we were greeted with blue skies and puffy clouds. We spent quite a while there, and got enough good stuff between us to fill a photo spread which we will hopefully get to run in The Texan sometime soon. After the show, we drove out to Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, which is the actual site where the battle took place. The exact spot where Custer and each of his troops fell was marked the day after the battle, and permanent stone markers are there now. After stopping in Billings for our last taste of civilization for a while, we started the overly long return trip and finally made it back to Philipsburg at 12:30.
		June 23 - Sunset
		On the way back to Philipsburg from Billings, we saw what had to have been the coolest sunset I have ever seen. We were somewhere in the vicinity of Big Timber, MT when the sun started setting over the mountains and the rain started pouring off in the distance at the same time. The entire sky was on fire. We would have stopped right then, but we were getting rained on, so we waited another 10 miles or so and snapped a few pictures in between rain showers.
		June 25 - Beaverhead National Forest, MT
		Some fellow photo friends from Austin were passing through on a roadtrip from Seattle, and they stopped and spent 2 nights with us at Dennis's house. It was cool to have some new people to hang out with, and they got the customary introduction to the White Front Bar. After that, Adi and I went back to the Beaverhead National Forest, which we drove through on the way to Bannack, to shoot some more scenery as our last assignment in Montana. I can't believe it's time to go home already --it'll be nice to be back to my normal life, but that means heat, stress, and deadlines. At least it'll take 4 days to get there.
		June 26 - Philipsburg, MT to Jackson Hole, WY
		We got quite the late start today, the major contributing factor being that we finally got Dennis to join us at the White Front, and we stayed out way too late to get on the road at our planned time. Once we finally got going, we drove through the Targhee National Forest on our way over the Tetons to Jackson Hole. The scenery was great, but Jackson ended up being a fru-fru tourist resort. There was even a Gap store on the main square in town. 331 miles.
		June 27 - Jackson Hole, WY to Denver, CO
		The expanse of highway between western Wyoming and Denver was an expanse of nothingness just as abominable as the one covering most of New Mexico. That could be one of the reasons that I enjoyed staying in downtown Denver so much, or it could be that Denver is just a really nice city. We stopped at an Asian place called Big Bowl, and got some yummy Asian food for dinner. After wandering around the 16th street mall for a while and taking a few pictures, we retired to the hotel to enjoy some cable TV, which we have been without for quite a while. 529 miles.
		June 28 - Denver, CO to Tulia, TX
		We left Denver in the middle of morning traffic, couldn't really see any of the mountains for all the smoke, and made it to Amarillo in the middle of a Jehovah's Witness convention. This meant that we couldn't find a hotel room to save our collective lives. So we drove out a few miles west of town to visit Cadillac Ranch, fixture of Route 66, and then grabbed some dinner and headed south. We finally found some rather sketchy accomodations in the small town of Tulia, and rested up for the last leg of the journey. I would have uploaded all this sooner, but the phone lines in Tulia didn't exactly accomodate my dialup connection. 524 miles.

All photography done with a Canon EOS D60 and Canon L series lenses. © Alex Jones 2002