studionumbernine.com – steve benoit, experience architecture

yellowstone. booya.

we arrived about 2.5 hours later than expected (because of a seasonally closed road within yellowstone) and angie and cole got ready to crash and i took the about-to-scratch-a-hole-in-my-leg puppy out for a walk. we walked up to the edge of a bluff on what was supposed to be a five mile animal viewing loop. first of all, i have never seen so many friggin stars in my life. honestly it was a bright as day out and there was just as much light in the sky as there was dark. amazing. secondly, i figured that 5 mile loop would be a good way to start the day the next day and we’d all pile in to the four runner before splitting up into separate cars again. this is important later in the story…

morning arrived with one member of the brady bunch next door screaming at the top of their lungs. there must have been 25 of them staying in that cabin. anyway, we eventually got up and got moving and headed out to do the wildlife drive.

nothing. one bird, that’s all we saw.

here’s where this trip became important though. as we neared the end of the loop, we approached the northern entrance to the park and something happened that caught me completely off guard.

my phone rang.

understand, there is ZERO cell reception in the park. no internet, no cell reception (AT&T anyway).. nothing. i’d been in a cone of silence for a few days really. but as luck would have it, i must have gotten a signal right as katie called to tell me she was chatting on facebook with my wife who was stranded in london, had been held up at gun point, had all of her money and credit cards taken and needed katie to send her $900 dollars as soon as she could.

i turned to to my wife, sitting beside me in the car, and asked her if any of this was true.

ok no i didn’t, but i wish i had. katie’s call was quickly followed by text messages, facebook posts, emails and phone calls asking if we were alright. thanks to all of yous who were concerned for us.

turns out someone hacked into angie’s facebook account and was IM’ing everyone trying to get money sent over to the UK. they were good too. we tried for hours to get back control of the profile and couldn’t do it (they eventually wiped it out, and angie hasn’t heard back from facebook about its reinstatement yet).

oh yah and after that we saw some buffalo, elk, a grizzly, old faithful, the dragons mouth and lots and lots of beautiful territory… a few pics below. more surely to follow:

local(e) listenings 3:
Spanish death song – builders & butchers
Mayonnaise brain – bobby barr jr.
Two weeks – grizzly bear
Drunk and fucked up – Ryan Adams
Eyes full of roses – horse feathers
Notice – mute math
Divided sky -phish

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