From Yellowstone, we traveled west across high desert to get to Butte, Montana's Copper Capital. A good part of this ride was on I-90, a northern cousin to I-80, not quite as truck-ridden, and slightly more scenic.

The camera rested during this passage. It's undeniably beautiful countryside, although Idaho, at least the part from Coeur d'Alene to Sand Point, shares with the Southwest the distinction of sudden overpopulation. Like the Southwest, the commercial corridors are bloated and undistinguishable from mall-amerika anywhere it metastasizes on the planet, but nature and indeed wilderness are never far away.

From Butte, halfway across Montana's "Big Sky", I-90 winds through rangeland and occasional interesting wetlands and scarps, into northern Idaho's lake lands, where we met up with an old friend.

We deviated from the shortest route home to spend a little time with an old friend who's transplanted himself successfully to the varied and fertile wilderness at the top of Idaho's panhandle, there to pick mushrooms and trap beaver in season. Each of our eccentric friends along the way had new lessons and insights for us, and it was especially nice to check in with Doc.

Never a believer in the marked-down aspects of modern US, Doc has won custody of his children and has raised them himself -- "home-schooled" misses the point; these children are "woods-schooled" and therefore knowledgeable and at ease with nature in a way unexplanable to "norms." While wondering how they'll find their way in plastik amerika, we couldn't help but appreciate their honesty and openness.

From Priest Lake, we headed right across the top of Washington, along Highway 20 -- folded country with open valleys, including the southern tip of the fruitful Okanagan, more like the temperate rain forests we're used to -- and came to rest in Twisp, a comfortable enclave on the eastern side of the Cascades.

The next day, we started with the North Cascades, got snowed on just a little, emerged into sunlight on the coastal plain well north of Seattle. Across Whidbey Island, a ferry ride, and we fetched up in Port Townsend.

These Cascades are seriously vertical mountains. Lots of water, forest, and rock, but unphotogenically lighted on this grey day. The narrow lakes and sharp slopes of this part of the world are mostly unspoiled by lumbering or development, except for hydroelectricity, which has been done, it seems, with more sensitivity than along the Columbia River.

We kept being reminded that here, Spring had not yet arrived, and so we passed through late-winter mountains. Already, the precipitous slide toward our comfortable little Caspar home had begun, and so it was hard to take the time to make photographs or absorb much from our surroundings.

We knew from the map that we were traveling around Mount Baker, but that stern eminence never revealed itself. We emerged from the mountains and passed through verdant foothills, crossed under I-5, and headed out into the islands of Puget Sound.

Port Townsend is, like Taos and Aspen, a picturesque tourist destination that has also attracted a nicely gentrified group of retirees and leisured residents. This makes it a very comfortable, if somewhat pricey, place to roost for a night ...and so we did.

We had the best clam chowder ever, saw a great out-of-the-mainstream movie, and a quiet night's sleep. But we couldn't help noticing that Port Townsend, like other touristy towns, has begun to understand that tourism is an extractive business, and that no matter how careful the year-around residents are to maintain an intact and lively community and culture, the damn tourists keep knocking the interesting corners and edges off. As we noticed at Yellowstone and Grand Canyon National Parks, and in villages and cities across Europe, too much tourism is undeniably toxic.

As tourists (or, as we'd prefer to be seen, travelers) we found ourselves caught, again and again, between seeking the familiar -- breakfast from a Safeway in Butte instead of a local greasy spoon -- and glorying in the intensely local -- dinner at fine local eateries in Twisp, Port Townsend, Ashland. There is no question that franchises are the death of authentic America.