I woke up this morning and there were icicles everywhere. I guess it got really cold last night. It's still surprising to me how warm it can be during the day out here and how quickly the temperature drops once the sun goes down.
We watched the sunrise over the Tetons one last time from our little farmhouse in Idaho, packed everything up and headed out.
Our first stop was Driggs to grab some bagels. Something I've learned over the past few days is that there are two very different ways to experience the Tetons. There's the Wyoming side, where Jackson Hole and Grand Teton National Park are, and then there's the Idaho side, where we've been staying.
Driggs is one of the bigger towns on the Idaho side, with cute shops, restaurants and incredible mountain views. It has a similar feel to Jackson, but without the Jackson Hole prices. If you ever want to visit this area, I would definitely consider staying on the Idaho side. We loved it.
Since we decided not to go into Grand Teton National Park yesterday, that was our plan for this morning.
The only problem was that we had to drive over Teton Pass to get there.
And Teton Pass is no joke.
There were signs everywhere warning about 10% grades, which, if you're unfamiliar, means the road is very, very steep. The kind of steep where you need to shift into a lower gear because you can't rely on your brakes the entire way down.
For what felt like forever, we were winding our way up and down this mountain with enormous drop-offs and spectacular views. My whole body was tense. I kept catching myself holding my breath, especially on the downhill stretches.
David, meanwhile, drove over it like he'd been doing this his entire life.
I've talked a lot about the photographs we're making and the places we're seeing, but I really want to take a moment to acknowledge what David has done to make this project possible.
He has now driven over 4,600 miles entirely by himself.
Every single mile.
And we're not talking about driving a normal car across the country. We're driving a 20-year-old Tacoma with an enormous photo set built into the back of it, through mountains, rainstorms, high winds and roads with grades that make my stomach turn.
David designed, engineered and built that entire set himself. He figured out how to secure it safely to the truck, how to weatherproof it, how to make it sturdy enough to withstand a month on the road and how to make the whole thing work as a functioning photo set.
There was so much thought that went into every little detail, most of which nobody will ever see.
And now we're driving that same set over mountain passes that climb thousands of feet into the air. Some of the roads through the Bighorn Mountains reach elevations above 9,000 feet.
The fact that it's all holding together as well as it is says a lot about the work he put into it.
And there is absolutely no one else I would want driving this truck over these mountains. I trust David completely. Even when I'm sitting in the passenger seat with my entire body tense, watching another 10% grade sign appear around the bend, I know he's got it.
Once we made it over Teton Pass, we headed into Grand Teton National Park.
For the past two days we've been looking at these mountains from a distance, sitting on the porch of our Airbnb in Idaho. Now we were on the other side, looking up at them from the valley below.
It's funny how much your point of view can change an experience.
From Idaho, the Tetons were this beautiful mountain range stretching across the horizon. From inside the park, they were enormous. The peaks seemed to rise straight out of the ground, and suddenly I felt very, very small.
And I think that's just as true mentally as it is physically. The way we look at something can completely change how we experience it. Two people can be in the exact same place, going through the exact same thing, and have entirely different experiences because of the perspective they bring to it.
I've been thinking about how much our mindset influences not just what we notice, but how we feel about what's happening around us. Sometimes the circumstances don't even need to change. Just the way we're looking at them.
We spent some time driving around the park looking for a place where we could pull the truck up and photograph the set with the mountains behind it.
We finally found a spot with a view of Grand Teton, the tallest peak in the range at about 13,770 feet.
And we got to work.
David and I have gotten so much better at working together in our new roles. He's becoming more comfortable behind the camera, and I'm becoming more comfortable being photographed. We're starting to find a rhythm, which is a relief because there were definitely some growing pains at the beginning of this trip.
The one thing we still haven't figured out is that I always want to shoot longer than David does.
Today was no exception.
We tried a bunch of different poses, and I kept wanting to try just one more thing. Then another. And another.
At one point, a group of older women who had been taking photographs of the Tetons came over and asked if they could take pictures of us.
There I was, standing on top of our bright yellow-green photo set in a blonde wig, with one of the most beautiful mountain ranges in America directly behind me.
And they wanted to photograph us.
That really made me laugh. The Tetons were right there, and somehow we'd become part of what they wanted to remember about their visit.
Eventually we wrapped up, packed everything away and got back into the truck. It was about 1:30 in the afternoon when we plugged the address for our next Airbnb into the GPS.
Seven and a half hours. Oh no.
Somewhere in all our planning, we had convinced ourselves that our next stay in Utah was significantly closer than it actually was.
We'd already driven over Teton Pass, spent time exploring the park and made our photographs. Now we were looking at another seven and a half hours on the road. There was absolutely no way we were getting there before dark.
We've been trying really hard to avoid driving at night. So many of the places we're staying are remote, and the thought of navigating unfamiliar gravel roads in the dark with the truck and set isn't particularly appealing to me.
But there wasn't much we could do about it now. At least we got the photographs.
As we started heading south, we drove alongside the Snake River. The water was so clear, winding through the valley with mountains rising in the distance. I could have watched it for hours.
It's easy to understand why Ansel Adams photographed this landscape. One of his most famous photographs, The Tetons and the Snake River, was made here in 1942.
And no offense to Ansel Adams, but I don't think black and white can do this place justice.
The colors were incredible.
We stopped at a boat landing so Joey could get out and put his paws in the water. There were grizzly bear warning signs around the area, which was a pretty good reminder that we were still very much in bear country.
Not somewhere I was particularly interested in wandering too far from the truck.
We got back on the road, and not long after that, a rock flew up and hit our windshield.
It was LOUD.
It smacked the glass directly in front of David, hard enough that we both jumped. And there it was, a big star-shaped crack right in the middle of the windshield.
Wonderful.
We still have about twelve days left of this trip, and the last thing we need is a crack spreading across the entire windshield while we're driving through the mountains.
So we stopped at an auto parts store in Jackson, and David bought a windshield repair kit with resin to fill the crack. He repaired it in the parking lot of Whole Foods while we took a lunch break.
David got pizza. I got a poke bowl.
The repair actually worked pretty well. The crack looks much better, and hopefully it'll keep it from spreading until we can get the windshield replaced.
The drive toward Utah was a little confusing geographically. We went from Wyoming into Idaho, then back into Wyoming, and eventually into Utah. I finally pulled up the map because I couldn't figure out what was happening.
We were basically weaving our way around the borders of three states.
And somewhere during those hours of driving, I started feeling really overwhelmed. Not in a bad way exactly. More like being a kid at Disney World every single day.
There is so much to look at. So much to take in. Every time I turn my head, there's something else I've never seen before. Another mountain, another river, another landscape that looks completely different from the one we were driving through an hour ago. It gives you this constant rush of excitement, but after a while it's exhausting.
There's something strange about the way we're experiencing nature on this trip. Usually when you go somewhere beautiful, you slow down. You sit with it. You hike around, explore, maybe spend a few days getting to know a place.
We're doing almost the opposite. We're moving through these landscapes so quickly, looking for the right photograph, making it and then continuing on.
Sometimes we barely have time to process where we've been before we're somewhere completely different. And I think that's been one of the hardest things for me mentally. I want to see everything. I want to photograph everything. I want to remember all of it. But we can't stay anywhere long enough to experience it the way I normally would.
The drives have become the time when we actually get to take things in. And today's drive into Utah was spectacular. We crossed into Utah around sunset, and the entire landscape was glowing.
The mountains were turning gold, the red rocks were catching the last of the sunlight, and there were fall leaves blowing across the road.
We never planned to do this trip in the fall. Originally, we wanted to be in Los Angeles by July. But our moving plans kept falling apart, everything got pushed back, and somewhere in the middle of all that, we ended up with the time to plan this project. I think driving across the country in the fall might be one of the best accidents that's ever happened to us. We've gotten to watch autumn change across America.
The bright orange and yellow trees in Wisconsin. The golden grasses stretching across South Dakota, with the dark green pines of the Black Hills. The yellow aspens scattered across the mountains in Wyoming. And now Utah, where the fall colors are mixed in with red rock, mountains and enormous open skies.
Every state has its own version of fall. I feel so lucky that I get to see all of this. I keep compulsively taking photographs and videos out the window because I want to remember it and share it with everyone back home. But none of it really does it justice.
And that's rare for me.
Usually I think the world looks even more beautiful through my camera. I love the way a lens can isolate something, change the perspective or turn an ordinary scene into something extraordinary. But out here, sometimes the camera feels like it's taking something away.
The scale of the mountains. The movement of the clouds. The way the light changes across the landscape. The feeling of actually being there. I don't know how to put all of that into a photograph. And maybe I don't need to.
We drove through a national forest in Utah, winding our way higher into the mountains as the sun was going down. I'm realizing I might actually prefer national forests to national parks for this project. They're beautiful, often much quieter, and there are so many places to pull off the road and enjoy the scenery without fighting crowds.
As we climbed higher, we could see what looked like a rainstorm off in the distance. The sun was shining through the clouds, and suddenly there was a rainbow stretching over the mountains.
A rainbow. As if the mountains and the sunset weren't enough.
I was still dressed in my outfit from our Grand Teton shoot. We've named the character Beverly, by the way. Bev for short.
So there I was, still dressed as Bev, when we spotted this rainbow.
Obviously we had to stop.
We backed the truck up, lined the set up with the mountains and rainbow behind it, and made a few more photographs. We were already running hours behind schedule, and here we were stopping to shoot again.
We couldn't help it. It was too beautiful.
And as we continued driving, I started thinking about how much discomfort has been part of this entire experience. We've spent the last eighteen days doing things that are completely outside our normal lives. We're sleeping somewhere unfamiliar almost every night. Houseboats, covered wagons, cabins, farms. We're driving through places we've never been, sometimes without really knowing what to expect when we get there.
David is photographing, and I'm modeling. Neither of us is used to those roles. We're making art in places we've never photographed before, figuring out the logistics as we go, and trying to accomplish something that probably should have a much larger team behind it.
We're constantly tired. The drives are long. The mountain passes are sometimes scary. Our timelines are overly ambitious, and there never seems to be quite enough time to do everything we want. It's not particularly comfortable. And yet, in the last eighteen days, I've seen some of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in my entire life.
I've been thinking about that idea that everything great happens outside your comfort zone.
Is that actually true?
I don't know that I believe everything great has to be difficult. There are plenty of wonderful things about feeling safe and comfortable. I love being home. I love knowing where I'm going to sleep and not having to think about whether the truck will make it over the next mountain.
But I do think there's something important about choosing to do things that scare you a little. Not because discomfort itself is good, but because sometimes it's part of getting somewhere you really want to go.
Our art has always had a certain intensity to it. We're usually trying to make something with more ambition than we have time or resources for. There are always problems to solve, things we have to figure out ourselves and moments where I'm not entirely sure how we're going to pull it off.
Sometimes I wonder what our work would look like if everything were easy. Would it be better? Would we be able to make something even more ambitious? Or would we lose some of the grit and rawness that comes from having to figure things out as we go?
Maybe that's just something I tell myself when I'm exhausted and wondering why we keep making things so complicated. But I do think there's something meaningful about pushing past the point where you would normally stop.
Later that night we drove through Salt Lake City. The city was glittering with lights, and for the first time in what felt like a week, we hit actual traffic.
I'd almost forgotten what a big city felt like.
It's funny that we're making our way toward Los Angeles, one of the biggest cities in the country, but we've spent the last couple of weeks staying in towns with populations of 164.
And now we're back in the mountains. I'm actually writing this as we drive toward Helper, Utah. I have absolutely no idea where Helper is. I know it's where our Airbnb is, and according to the GPS, we'll be there in 44 minutes.
It's pitch black outside. We're driving over another mountain, and I can't see anything beyond the headlights. But I can feel the mountains around us. My ears keep popping as we change elevation, and every once in a while I can make out the dark outline of something enormous beside the road.
I have no idea what any of this looks like.
Are the mountains red? Are they covered in trees? Is there grass? Are we driving through somewhere beautiful right now without even knowing it?
It's a strange feeling, knowing there's something huge all around you but not being able to see it.
It reminds me a little of those moments in life when you can feel that something important is happening, even though you don't really understand what it means yet.
You know you're in the middle of something big. You just can't see the whole picture.
Today has been a day of mountains. Looking at them, photographing them, driving over them, being scared of them and being completely in awe of them.
And now we're driving through one in the dark.
Our Airbnb is in a designated dark-sky area, which sounds lovely for stargazing but is a little less lovely when you're trying to find an unfamiliar house on a remote road at eleven o'clock at night.
We haven't passed another car in what feels like an hour.
The GPS says we'll arrive at 11:06 p.m.
I'll let you know what the mountains look like in the morning.
— Jada + David
