I thought I was so clever back in July when I wrote “Postcards from Home.” I knew that at some point in the near future, my husband and I would embark on a cross-country road trip, and I thought that post would be the perfect segue for sharing photos from our journey.

I envisioned myself pulling out my computer after a day of driving and pouring my experiences into the blog. That didn’t happen — though I did post photos to my Instagram account.

I’m not sure exactly why not, other than fatigue, hunger, and bad Wifi connections made sitting down and writing unappealing. Plus, there was so much input, both when we were traveling and when we were staying put. I enjoyed living in the moment, and allowing myself to be swallowed by landscapes like this one.

But I’m sticking with my postcard analogy: This post and the ones that follow are postcards that don’t arrive until the traveler has already returned home. Sometimes the mail is slow or sometimes the cards aren’t mailed until the journey is over.

After driving from Concord to Detroit to attend a family wedding, we headed west, toward Portland, Oregon. In Minnesota we took a hike.

The trail overlooked the Mississippi River.

I should note that while the above scene was captured with an actual camera, I took most of the photos on the trip with my phone camera. As my friend in San Francisco likes to say, “The best camera is the one you have with you.”

From Minnesota, we pushed west through South Dakota toward Montana, hitting a corner of Wyoming along the way.

Little Big Horn gave me chills, made me angry too.

Driving into Montana, there were purple mountains.

In Bozeman, there was a walk through town.

And a hike at Peets Hill.

And have I mentioned who was traveling with us? She made herself right at home and cooled off in a little stream at the end of the hike.

From Montana, we skimmed the northern point of Idaho and drove through a corner of Washington State.

Why did we leave home in the first place and why did we drive? I’ll share more about that in a future post.