I went to Idaho for Hailey and the Henry’s Fork. Looking back through the photographs, the trip starts somewhere I would never have put on a fishing itinerary: inside a wolverine costume.
That is the version of this road trip I want to remember. Rivers and open country, certainly—but also friends, a homecoming parade, a diner counter, and the unexpected turns between the places I came to see.
October 2–3 / A different kind of homecoming
Before the waders came the fur. I found myself dressed as the Wood River Wolverines mascot, wearing number 11, with the oversized head and paws to complete the look. The photographs make the transformation wonderfully hard to deny.
There is something about stepping into a ridiculous costume that removes any temptation to take yourself too seriously. The friends beside me, the green jerseys, and the red trees made this a very personal welcome back to Hailey.
The next morning’s photograph changed the mood completely: moving water beneath yellow leaves. From a parade to a riverbank in less than a day. Idaho was already giving me more than one kind of homecoming.
October 4 / Silver Creek, in the clear
At Silver Creek, the landscape opened out. A narrow trail cut through golden grass. The sky was almost uninterrupted blue, and the water was clear enough to make the creek bed part of the view.
I like the contrast between the wide landscape and the photographs of us standing beside it. One frame gives the water all the attention; another brings the fishing gear, familiar faces, and smiles back into the picture. The place and the company belong in the same story.
October 5–7 / Following the Henry’s Fork
The next part of the road trip took me into the Henry’s Fork country. By October 5, the photographs had moved east: a pickup, a drift boat, and the practical business of getting onto the water.
Over the following days, the boat became the center of the album. There were views from the bow, fishing companions framed by the river, and water that shifted from bright blue to a nearly perfect reflection beneath the low sun. The photographs hold both the fishing and the space around it.
October 7 has the fullest sequence: morning photographs from the boat, a fish held above the water in the early afternoon, and the three of us together later in the day. I do not need to turn that fish into a measurement or the day into a scorecard. The photograph is enough: a trout, an angler, and the river behind them.
The group picture is the one that gives the whole stretch its meaning. The river supplied the setting. The people made it my trip.
October 8–9 / The stops between
By October 8, the camera had traded the boat for a giant Frostop root beer mug. Inside, red stools lined the counter and a checkerboard floor supplied the kind of detail I always want to photograph on a road trip.
These stops deserve room in the story, too. They connect the bigger destinations: somewhere to pause, a different view, a reminder that the drive has its own character.
The final photographs, dated October 9, bring the album back to the Hailey area: dry hills, sagebrush, yellow trees, and clouds large enough to take over the frame. The trail runs forward through it all.
I came for time in Idaho and on the water. What stays with me is the combination: the quiet of Silver Creek, the Henry’s Fork days with friends, and the thoroughly improbable sight of me wearing a wolverine head. It is a good reminder to leave room in a trip for the part you could not have planned.