Removed from established civilization,  humans revert to their tribal roots and their language evolves to match their new way of life. The second day into our journey the words breakfast, lunch, and dinner have fallen out of our vocabulary and have been replaced with first sausage, second sausage, and third sausage, respectively. Any meal that does not contain sausage is referred to as not-sausage.
The Gregorian calendar has also fallen to the wayside. We are initially confused as to why several of the locations we had planned to visit are closed, but eventually realize that it is Sunday. We watch a base jumper with a Red Bull parachute jump off of the Perrine Bridge as we adapt our travel plan.

The Minidoka National Historical Site moves up on our destination list. There’s not much left there – the buildings are almost entirely gone, but the history is massive enough to fill the empty spaces. Minidoka was one of many WWII-era internment camps where thousands of Japanese-American families were locked up after being removed from their homes.

It’s yet another dark moment in our history that many people don’t know about – a time when fear and paranoia drove us to lock people away in “relocation centers” just as we were fighting fascists who were doing the same.

But those were the good ole’ days. Baseball, apple pie, and neighborhoods safe enough to leave your doors unlocked at night. When someone waxes poetic about the America of the past, it’s a good sign that they know very little about the America of the past. Only the future is worthy of poetry.

Leaving Minidoka, I was submerged in thoughtfulness, but we did take time to stop and take hipster pictures of an old farm house, because there’s only so much introspection a person can handle in one day.

We drove to Idaho Falls and discovered they had a well-reviewed zoo. I made friends with a goat in the petting zoo area and watched a monkey meditate.

Once we had burned a few hours at the zoo, we decided to proceed into Wyoming. Our planned stop was an arch of antlers in Jackson Hole, but upon arriving, we saw that it was engulfed in retirees and RV tourists and quickly moved on to Grand Tetons National Park.

We arrived at the park at sunset, just in time to catch the last light hitting the mountain tops and to see two young deer butting antlers.

A campsite was found and claimed, third sausage was prepared, and we settled in for what proved to be a very chilly evening.