We drove through these trees and it smelled like somewhere in the distance, a forest was burning. This was after a long day of visiting geysers, you and me and our friends, driving back to our campsite to cook fancy camp food on an open fire

Somewhere here, in Glacier National Park, we're still living the loop of our perfect day hike. We began in shaded trees -- where you dispelled my mirages of bears and deer -- stopped to rest at an icy stream (did I eat a plum?) and then ascended, breathless, above alpine level. 

I don't remember what this opening is called, this cavernous pass, but I do remember sitting here on rocks, eating an apple with you. The steep cliffs reminded me of Chinese mountains. There was a azure pool. Travelers below said that the trail lead to Canada; lodging and food were some hours down that way. We had just completed the most perfect hike of our road trip, and it wasn't even 2pm. I imagined a lifetime of perfect, nourishing ascents and descents, spread over long weekends and all ending in huckleberry pie. We went no further.

There were too many dark clouds for us to see the mountain that day. All anyone here talked about was the 1980 volcanic eruption, how it uprooted entire pine forests and stranded scientists and annihilated everything in its way. Nearly four decades later, I'm touched by the quiet fertility of the volcanic ash: small, bright wildflowers and young pine trees. Sometimes this is what it takes. There is always an after. 

We laughed that the smooth, jewel-colored stones lining the lake were actually from Home Depot. Here in Indian country, the water was cold even in August. The stones hurt our feet. I scuttled on my limbs like a crab, from water to stone to grass, where you wrapped me in a towel. The next day we rented 1-person kayaks...

It is a hot and bone dry desert landscape - the kind of place you emerge from parched and covered in white dust. I imagined Western movies being shot here, and hiking at night to the sounds of coyotes and a bright full moon.

We were actually going to Mount Rushmore. We went there for half an hour, had snapped photos of faces of white male presidents, when we saw Crazy Horse on the maps. It was an unfinished statue in the likeness of a Native American warrior, commissioned in 1939, completely still unfinished. 

For this postcard, I decided to create an illustrated map of my brief stay in Chicago, inspired by one of my oldest side projects, Wandermaps, which captures illustrated narratives of cities.

My first postcard of the series was for Karen, a dear friend I met while studying abroad in Mongolia many years ago. I painted her a watercolor scene of the living room at our Airbnb in Cleveland, Ohio