Yellowstone and beyond.

There is a place where I wanted to go since I was 8 years old, when my Mother bought me a Viewmaster package with pictures that were amazing. I finally got there!

The last week plus, Matt and I were traveling the country again. That Ford Edge has seen so many roads in the short time it has been with us and will see many more. It is so much fun and so enlightening to see the country. There are places where the climate and landscape change from hour to hour; places where people think and act completely differently from where we live. There is a huge misconception that everyone lives a daily life just like we do (or very similar to it). They don't. Not even close in many instances. What is important to us is pure nonsense to them.

The farmer in Nebraska, the retiree in Florida, the banker in New York, the student in California, all have completely different concepts, problems and concerns. They are all living a different day in different circumstances.

While in Yellowstone , our days were lived in wonder, amazement, beauty, and happiness. Mornings were cold (some below freezing), and a look out the front door was not met with school traffic, people speeding down the road to get to work in time, or dog walkers and joggers. It was met with mist coming off the lake, cool fresh air, and many times, a bison or a herd of bison.

Breakfast was always delicious and filling, but then the walk back up to the cabin at 7700 feet was one that literally took your breath away. People don't rush around there. You can't. I suppose if you were born at that altitude, you can a little bit, but most people were taking it easy. I saw only one jogger (not sure if he made his usual jog or not). Moving about on a level surface is easy (unless you are out of shape or ill), but uphill , or running, is a whole different story. I saw bicyclists with all their gear, who usually make me look like I am totally OUT of shape, gasping for air. Their routine, the jogger's routine, and even the walker's routine, had to slow down. Mother nature required it. She is firmly in charge there.

When I lived "in the middle of nowhere",  NM,  I had a 35 minute drive if I forgot an ingredient for dinner. You learned to keep a stock of certain foods, and medications. A trip down the mountain for some Imodium just wasn't going to work out well.

We live the way we do, and schedule our lives the way we do, for reasons, and most of them have to do with Mother Nature. There are no AC units in many places (including Yellowstone), they are totally unnecessary, heating however, is life saving. Your day is structured around making sure your back pack is filled with layers of clothing or room for them , water, and maybe rain gear. No snacks though, bears love snacks....

We had to stop for traffic jams, but they were caused by bison. When a 2000 pound animal wants to stand in the middle of the road, that is what he will do. A park ranger jokingly said "we pay those animals a lot of money to slow down the traffic here in the park.". Unfortunately some do not adapt to the new surroundings and 100 animals are killed per year in the park becasue someone just has to get to the next site before everyone else.

That said, there are idiots in the park, after all, there always has to be some. The scariest thing I saw wasn't a bear, but an elderly Japanese gentleman walking off the boardwalk to the edge of a hot spring. Hot springs are surrounded by a thin crust of minerals.All I could picture was him falling through.  One hiker went through one and had scalded his legs, third degree burns that took months to heal. The water is at and above boiling. I am sure the Japanese man could not read the signs (he and the people he was with were speaking Japanese), but there is a boardwalk there for a reason, and when in a place like Yellowstone, you need a healthy dose of common sense. There are a few places where cell phones work, and if this man would have fell in, I may have been able to drag him out, but medical attention would have been at least an hour away. I would have had to drive to the ranger station, and the medical people would then have to drive to the man.....

There are people letting dogs run without a leash (I guess they think it is a giant dog park). The result has been dogs never returning, running into hot springs and dying, and getting attacked and eaten by wild animals. I don't think the concept of being in the "wild" hits these folks. Even eagles, golden eagles, red tail hawks, and great horned owls have snatched small dogs off to be dinner.

This is a place where Mother Nature rules. Period. The bison walk where they want to , forest fires are managed, not put out (without them there would be no new trees of certain species),  bears roam at will, and trails are closed if the bear get too close to human hikers. Rest rooms are everywhere so no idiots pollute the landscape. You can't go 15 minutes without finding a rest stop. They function on a biodegradable system, not a sewer or typical septic. There are no areas for camp fires (one group of English folks on the lodge porch one night were lamenting that they couldn't find a place to bar-be-que). The park seems to have thought of every dumb thing a human can do, and made ways for these things to be difficult or impossible to do.

There is no smoking in any of the buildings at all, or on the boardwalks or trails. No litter of cigarette butts to be seen anywhere. There is no litter. My life at home seems to be a litany of picking up Mc Donalds bags (there is someone in the neighborhood that must eat it every day) , candy wrappers and soft drink cups. None are to be seen in Yellowstone.

Mother Nature comes first in the park, not people, yet there are no inconveniences. Lodges and hotels will even pack a box lunch for you if you want to picnic at one of the hundreds of picnic tables. You just can't start a fire. There are also no TVs in the park, well there is one , and that is in a bar at the Mamouth Hot Springs. No TV, and barely a phone signal (there are pay phones), are really the only things that are not readily available.

It was well worth it. We saw bison munching 3 feet away on my cabin doorstep, elk, black tail deer, antelope (prong horn), pikas (they are THE most adorable things), squirrels that would fit in your pocket (the second most adorable things),  bear, coyotes strolling up the road,marmots, bald eagles, red tail hawks, golden eagles, ospreys, and  ravens (who are not the least bit afraid of people). You see these things every day. How awesome is that! We missed the big horn sheep and wolves, but they are notorious for staying far from people.

The geysers, hot springs, and boiling mud pots remind you that you are sitting on a volcano that blew a hole" many miles wide" off the top of the mountains about 600,000 years ago. Thank goodness it is venting! We heard holes in the ground that sounded like jet engines, and others where the smell was so bad we could understand why some early visitors were sure it was an access to Hell. The visitor's centers are FULL of information about geysers, animals, trees...all in about seven languages. I heard German, French, Italian, Japanese, and a Scandinavian language I couldn't put my finger on.

It is indescribable, and the beauty in our pictures is just a small sampling of the grandeur there. Yes there are still people parking in handicapped spaces who have no right to be there, and letting their dogs run free, but you know what, eventually Mother Nature teaches them a lesson, there may not be a ranger in sight playing parking police, but the Universe is always watching.The same goes for the Grand Tetons, but that is a park for another day!
 

Visit a National park, and be a responsible visitor while doing so.

You won't be disappointed.



Peshaui Wequashimese


(C) 2011 Dr. R M Wolf. May not be used, copied or reproduced without prior written permission.