Yes, naming cities is fun. But these particular cities are ones I’ll be visiting during the month of September, on a long drive from Chicago.

I live for road trips.

But part of this is a business trip, which involves documenting certain features of places like Olympic National Park, Wind Cave National Park, and Grand Teton National Park. Oh, and I’m also going to take a gander at places near the beach. Yeah, the Chicago weather may finally be getting to me, this living and dying by air conditioners and heaters. Plus, well, the scenery. It doesn’t exist here. You have to drive five hours to reach any kind of countryside (as defined by a roadless area of a thousand acres or more) or a national forest, and even then the topography is decidedly…flat.

Chicago is a wonderful place for art, schools, museums, sports, and culture. And the people are amazing. I truly love the area. But it lacks a big one for me – nature. No national parks. No national forests. So every year I have to take a pilgrimage of sorts.

The woods and mountains are my “church”, always have been. So I’m testing the waters a bit, just for kicks.

A pic from the National Bison Range (Montana):

So…what the hell was a wild grouse doing on top of my car? Good question. I’d stopped to admire the view a the top of the range, and this grouse decided to hang out on my car. It let me get close, and even touch it. Crazy. We sat there for about twenty minutes, watching the view and listening to the hoppers singing and the wind in the pines. And then a clattering diesel pickup approached from the rear, and the grouse immediately flew away.

Needless to say, this was the strangest “scenery watching partner” I’d ever had. Such a cool bird.

Ah, surgery is fun! Apparently my intestines broke through my upper abdominal wall and had to be pushed back in and sewn up. Awesome! So I’m supposed to be recovering. But instead I’m messing around on my blog. You can only lay in bed for so long before becoming completely bored.

The good news is I’m feeling better. Besides, I’ve been through far worse.

I was blown away by the professionalism and staff at the hospital. Everyone was friendly, and I even had a nurse or two come back to post-op with their Kindles/Nooks and ask me which of my short stories they should buy. An interesting day to be sure. I’d never looked at surgery as a social meeting ground, but life is funny that way….

I haven’t been writing much the last two weeks thanks to the pain (before and after surgery). Of all the things a writer can encounter that has the capacity to deter, it’s pain. It jolts you from the world you’re creating. Not good. Also not good is editing on pain killers. So I’ve stopped editing LAMENT for the next few days.

I’m looking forward to wrapping up the editing of LAMENT and heading out on a western road trip in September. Preparations are under way for a campground tour of Montana. I’m looking at a month, which is perfect.

And speaking of Montana, I took this photo of a coyote in Many Glacier a couple years back. It was early October at about 6 a.m. The coyote actually wanted to play. It would sprint at me, stop short, splay its paws out, do a couple juke moves then run off and repeat. A beautiful animal. I had on my 300mm prime lens and the coyote was so close the lens was almost useless. But I did manage to get off a couple shots of the playful guy. I’ve always had a weird connection with animals (I’ll be posting a strange grouse story somewhere down the road here). This was one happy coyote. When it was done playing it sat down in the grass next to me and groomed itself. It sensed no danger at all, which is unusual. Maybe it knew I’m a friendly sort. 😉

Many Glacier is a harsh environment. The weather is hostile, and food is hard to come by in the cold season. I wondered how this coyote survived. As I left the scene, the coyote trotted off in the other direction towards the ice-covered mountains.

Anyway, feel free to download the image for use as desktop background. It’s sized perfectly for 1920×1200 and looks great.