I โ™ก Wasting Ink โ†’ Diaries โ†’ These Walking Dreams โ†’ Day 88 (July 9, 2017)

Zaล Hot Spring, Yamagata โ†’ Yamagata City โ†’ Tendล, Yamagata

Map of Yamagata prefecture with authorโ€™s route from Zaล Hot Spring to Tendล highlighted.

Open map in Gaia GPS โ†’

A road leads down towards a city in a valley, with a large, snow-capped mountain, Mount Gassan, on the horizon.

Unripe bunches of grapes hang from the vine in the sunshine.
A bright blue head of hydrangea in a forest.
๐Ÿ“ Zaล Hot Spring, Yamagata
On a wall, a cartoon alligator brushes its teeth while a small tortoise looks on.
On the same wall as above, a cartoon elephant wearing green trunks and an ophthalmologistโ€™s headlamp holds a blue mug and smiles at a small, worried ant.

An unhappy statue of a kingfisher by the side of a road.

๐Ÿ“ Yamagata City

Head-on view of a very black car, a Mitsubishi Diamante.

Side view of the car shows its customs wheels.
Closeup of a radically extended rear wheelarch.
Closeup of the left headlight.

Rear view of the car shows the license plate: 66-66.

๐Ÿ“ Yamagata City

The devil, as I have learned, is in Yamagata, and drives a Mitsubishi Diamante.

Heads of pink mallow in the evening light.
Mount Zaล in the evening light, as seen from a bridge across a stream in Yamagata City.

A red mailbox made out of a propane tank.

๐Ÿ“ Yamagata City

In a country not known for irregular mailboxes, there was an almost Balkans beauty to this one, crafted out of a propane tank, on the outskirts of Yamagata.

These Walking Dreams is a visual field diary of a 4,300-kilometer walk from one end of Japan to the other, in the spring and summer of 2017.

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