We take so many more pictures than just at festivals and events, and we meet so many good people in our journey from place to place.  Here are some pictures of people and places from the road as early as the beginning of July!

At a campground in southern Colorado, on the way to the Rainbow Gathering.  This guy was smoking a stogie and was probably quietly reciting lines in his head to “A River Runs Through It.”

Our gang caught a few trout that proved to be good eatin’.  That night a bear came trompin’ through our campground.  My friend Mark slept on the picnic table because he didn’t have a tent.  He woke to the bear sniffing his feet at 4am.

The most beautiful clouds in northern New Mexico.  Don’t shoot and drive.

The beautiful sunset was followed by a full moon over the desert.

In Bloomfield, NM, Ross stayed with the Harris family.  They’re a big family, and two others from the gang are not even pictured!  Thanks for your wonderful hospitality!

Cadillac Ranch.  Amarillo, TX.

In Dallas, TX, Uncle Alex proved to be the host with the most.   Alex is so proud of his Texas outdoor smoker.  It probably weighs two-tons, can be towed behind a truck, and has a steel state of Texas welded onto the handles.  He smoked a delicious pork tenderloin for dinner, and concluded the evening by renting “Fitzcarraldo”, a movie about a German guy who tries to build an opera house in the Peruvian jungle.  Thanks for the great time, Alex!

Don’t be fooled by the tropical backdrop…this is rural Oklahoma.  And these nice young ladies served us up some sweet and cold snowcones while the Dodge Lodge cooled off en route to the Noodlin’ fest.  They also sell kitschy antiques in the adjoining shop and what they do for fun wasn’t real clear.  We just got a bunch of giggles when we asked.

Sooners call it like it is.

It was so hot in Oklahoma that tent sharing at 90 degrees at night was impossible.  Ross found a better alternative on top of a stone picnic table.

“How much weed you boys hauling in that truck?”  That was the question  the officer on the left kept asking repeatedly.  He was kidding.  Kind of.  We stopped to ask directions to a place to eat.  It was July 10 and Ross was wearing a Happy July 4 tiara.  We had Virginia plates.  We told them we were photographers.  Our truck ran on veggie grease.  We were in a tiny Oklahoma town that looked like it hadn’t recovered from the great depression of 1929.  When the cops looked in the back of the truck and saw the veggie oil set-up, they thought we were running a portable meth lab.

Breyerfest wasn’t the only party in Lexington, KY.  Dave Kaplan and Buddy the Beagle hosted us for 3 nights with a final celebration to break in the new house…inside out burgers, hay bails,cornhole, champagne at midnight, and Roofie Ball.

Dear President Obama: The AFP has a plan to put to use our nation’s foreclosed and vacant homes and strengthen our communities with a new active sport…Roofie Ball.  Here are the 10 rules:
1. Find a vacant house with a sloping roof
2. Grab 2 tennis racquets, a racquetball, and an opponent
3. Keep score like ping pong
4. Serve the ball onto the roof to begin the game.
5. The ball must touch the surface of the roof at least once and is not allowed to touch the ground or go off the side of the roof.
6. Points are awarded to the person who last hit the ball on the roof and a single point is deducted for hitting a bathroom vent.
7. For mult-level roofs, the second level (called “the precipice”) makes that point worth two points.
8. Hitting windows is legal, only if prior to or afterwards the ball touches the roof.
9. Protective eyewear is recommended but not required.
10. Roofie ball should be played during social gatherings inolving the potential for high levels of intoxication.

In St. Louis, Ross’s aunt and uncle, the Sprongs, took us in for a few days and really treated us to a good time. From the All-Star game, to wonderful meals, to epic table-tennis matches, the Sprongs showed us an excellent time in Kirkwood, MO. Cousin Emmy is going to kill us for posting a picture of her in a towel, but it’s the only picture we had!

At Busch Stadium in St. Louis, with the famous “gateway to the west” arch in the background, a stealth bomber flew over head to cap off an overly sentimental and patriotic opening ceremony.

President Obama threw the first pitch of the game, but it was pretty pathetic.  From behind third plate, we could just make out the ball kicking up dust as it bounced IN FRONT of home plate.  Oh well, you can’t be good at everything.

Cousin Celia provided hours of entertainment in the pool.  We’ll never forget her overwhelming excitement at sharing youtube videos of a Megladon.  What, you might ask, is a megladon?  Come on, even a seven year-old knows it’s a giant, prehistoric shark. In fact, Celia is looking kind of sharky in this photo.

Breakfast, Springfield, MO.

Friend Keith took the time out of his hurried departure out of Chicago to meet us for lunch.  It was really great to catch up with this old Charlottesville friend.  Our Korean waitress insisted on coming over to the table and offering eating suggestions to Andrew.  “More sauce, more sauce!”  “Here, this meat, eat this meat”.  We died laughing.

In only the most unusual of circumstances will you find yourself in Wisconsin Dells twice in a year.  But instead of cheerleaders we found a giant cowboy who wasn’t quick enough on the draw.

Dropping the “National Geographic” bomb helped land us a free entry into the Freshwater Fish Museum with the World’s Largest Muskee presiding over the park. We’re talkin’ major access, folks.

We find the best people through couchsurfing. In Hayward, WI, Rob Smith gave us his front yard to pitch a tent at his family’s Callahan Lake Resort while we were in town for the Lumberjack Championships.  Their family resort is the kind of mom-and-pop place you would imagine when you think of Wisconsin lakes.  Rob’s mother still tends to the bar at night, and she can tell you some good stories if you have the time to sit down.  Rob’s heading out on a road trip of his own to kick off 2010.

You have to visit Callahan Resort to see the muskee water fountain.  Or as they call them up there–bubblers.

The underwater camera gets some more use in Callahan Lake as Andrew gets airborne off the Loose Caboose.

Uncle Jay and Aunt Lisa hosted us up in Duluth–the land of COLD.  They were much more welcoming than the Hells Angels.  Jay is an excellent nature photographer and ladder climbing extraordinaire.  Their apartment looks out over Lake Superior from the terraced hills of Duluth.  We had such a nice time talking photography and art.  All our meals were eaten outside on the porch, in the cool breeze from the lake.

Aunt Lisa trains animals.  Her favorite bird, Tico, plays dead.

From Minnesota, we made an epic, all day and night drive to the Badlands.  We arrived in the park at 2am, spread out our tarp behind a hill, and fell asleep watching shooting stars.

In the morning, we were woken at 6am by some crazy tourists who thought it would be a good idea to watch the sunrise and tromp through our campsite.  Despite the lack of sleep, at least we got up in time to catch good light.

Later that day we drove into Wall, SD, and visit the infamous Wall Drug.  It was a great experience.  5 cent coffee, roaring dinosaurs, funny bumper stickers, and a most impressive historical photography and painting collection, all made Wall Drug a place to be remembered.

Driving through the open plains of South Dakota, we had to get out and run through the green fields.  Unfortunately, the grass is infested with grasshoppers and tiny flies.  We were quickly attacked.

Honey!  On route from Pine Ridge Reservation, S.D.

The energy in the parking lot of the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington this weekend wasn’t just palpable, it was written all over the cars and trucks parked next to us: “I’ve been counting down for 168 Days…”; “Happy Birthday Breyer!”; “If you can’t cure the obsession, FEED IT!!”; “Breyerfest or Bust!!”

Our enthusiasm for plastic model horses was substantially more subdued, however.  We had been told the night before, as we drove through Missouri, we weren’t welcome at the 20th Breyerfest Birthday Bash.  The company who organizes and runs the event, Breyer, wasn’t interested in being associated with our project and the small festivals we’ve previously documented.  The crux of issue was that the AFP declares it is “in search of America’s small, hidden, and bizarre festivals.”  And Breyer doesn’t want to be considered “small,” “hidden,” or “bizarre.”  Nor did they want virtual company with the Prison Rodeo, the Coondog Graveyard, or presumably any other event we’ve photographed.  So, the report from Lexington is…BUST.

Disappointment would be an understatement of our reaction to Breyer’s decision.  And since they gave us only a day’s notice, it was impossible for us to find an alternative festival for the weekend.  That’s the reason we showed up anyway, hoping to convince the Breyer folks of our intentions.  We even got to the top, discussing the issue with the patriarch of plastic quadrupeds, the president of Breyer.  But his convictions were firm.

The bitter taste of rejection was on our tongues all weekend.  It was the AFP’s first encounter with corporate interests.  The battle between controlled corporate marketing and journalistic intent played out right before our eyes.  Breyer has lofty dreams to be “like Disney.”  They want all the commercial wheels greased, and they saw no benefit to AFP’s coverage of the event.  They want to be seen as mainstream and as accessible to all, but the truth is that Breyerfest is not like visiting Epcot Center.  Sheik the Danish Knabstruffer and Idocus the Warmblood Bay are not Mickey and Minnie Mouse.  Even if Target carries them all on Aisle 8, the world of Walt is just a few body lengths in the lead on that race.

So let’s play out a scenario.  A few thousand people from around the country and even a few from international countries converge on a single location to purchase a specific maker of collectible toy horses, talk about their collection of rare breed replicas,  offer advice for building a collection (aka “stable management”),  and learn techniques for making custom miniature saddles, harnesses, bridles, and other tack.   Many of the participants are young girls but the age of the attendees spans all ages.  A good percentage of them are wearing sweatshirts and t-shirts embossed with horse portraits.  They paint on their car windows and they shell out hundreds of dollars all to satisfy their passion for collectible model horses.  Now tell us, is this not a unique group of people?

We’ll be honest, we’re not model horse collectors.  Although Ross is a good jockey size and Andrew has broken his back shoveling out horse stalls over the years.  We’re photographers.  And for this project, we are photographing unique human gatherings that say something about they way Americans live today.  Going to these events and festivals is like seeing life in fast forward, like witnessing American traditions, rituals, and values in their most dense visual form. So why Breyerfest?  Why did AFP want to be there in the first place?   Why was it on the shortlist of festivals to attend?  Two reasons.  The first, perhaps no nation in the world hordes things like the US.  Cars, coins, teddy bears, family heirlooms, t-shirt collections, middle school essays, high school swimming trophies…it pains us to throw things away.  And many of us at some point or another in our lives have little collections of specific things.  For Ross it was rocks, buttons, baseball cards, and foreign coins.  For Andrew it was football cards, He-Man action figures, and toy race cars.  Creating a collection is part of growing up American. The second component of Breyerfest is the horse.  What animal is more accessible to the collective American memory than the horse?   What animal in the American consciousness is revered with as much grandeur and mystique as the horse?  From the Spanish conquistadors to Buffalo Bill, the horse is the animal that conquered the New World.

Who knows, maybe in a hundred years, we’ll all see that it was the Breyer horse that conquered the hearts and imaginations of young girls of the 21st century in a way that Barbie did in the 20th century.  Shirking off adorable bowtied mice and well-intentioned journalists will have presented no challenge, and the right of passage for all Americans will be a bareback ride to PasturePlanet. The AFP wishes Breyer all the best of luck, and we fully understand their point of view.  But it’s our duty as journalists to call a spade a spade.  And we’re sorry we couldn’t introduce the passionate, if not unique, world of model horse collecting to our faithful and engaged audience.