Well, mom, I went a whole day without updating my blog. Were you worried? That’s what I thought. What about the rest of you? Did you miss me terribly while imagining some poor tragic end to the girl with the devilish grin and anachronistic braid?
Now that I think of it, I might be a few days behind on the good old blog. What have I been up to? Gadding about the American West of course. I have covered a couple of national parks, a national monument, an historic center, and toyed with the idea of going to a rodeo. However I got very swept up in the audio book version of The Hunger Games so the rodeo idea never really had a chance.
Did you know that Devils Tower was the very first national monument? In addition, it is terribly controversial because it is (and has been for generations) a sacred Native American heritage site that we callous white folk like to climb for sport. To say there is tension over the issue is an understatement. Much of the visitors center is dedicated to a discussion of this topic. There are full written plans regarding the climb. There have been court cases over separation of church and state about the climb. Kind of fascinating really. Outside of the turmoil there is something that is easy to overlook. The monument itself. Not literally as it is huge and can be seen from miles away. What I mean is a bit more intangible than that. Between the groups of loud children, German tourists, and your own need to get the perfect photo of the phallic phenom it is hard to get a quiet moment to just look at it. If you ever go you should try to do just that. Try to find moment of silence to listen to nothing but the sound of the blood rushing through your ears.
Then it was off to Cody, Wyoming to the Buffalo Bill Historic Center. It has also been called “the Cowboy Smithsonian” without much exaggeration. I hadn’t known much about good old Mr. Bill before going. I mostly went because it was on the way and I like shiny bits of randomness so a museum dedicated to the P.T. Barnum of Westerns sounded right up my alley. It was far more interesting that I could have imagined and I now have another subject to add to my reading list – W.F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody.
The next day was spent (in its entirety) at Yellowstone. I had blocked out the whole day for Yellowstone and it wasn’t nearly enough. I couldn’t even cover half the park and I am pretty well practiced at this whole national park thing now. I finally got to see some big horn sheep, and of course there were more bison. As is becoming a bit of a routine I drove in from the frozen alpine tundra side bundled up to my chin in multiple jackets and by midafternoon was working on a brilliant sunburn and wishing I hadn’t left my waterbottle in the car. I toured the geysers for about three hours on foot. I am now sufficiently geysered out but did have the great good fortune of seeing two massive ones go off (Old Faithful and Beehive) as well as ominous bubblings from a few of the smaller ones. I also managed to get to the Grand Prismatic Pool. I wasn’t about to leave the park without seeing it. From aerial views you think you are looking at some scientific experiment gone horribly wrong or a photoshop project that left realism at the door. You have never seen such vivid colors occur in nature before. From ground level it isn’t quite as breathtaking as you are fighting a cloud of hydrothermal by-product gas to even see the pool. But it is still really cool and the boardwalk system they have set up around all of the geysers and pools are a fun change from asphalt trails.
Grand Teton was the last (new) park of the week, and of the trip in fact. Tomorrow I will go to Zion but I have been there once before so it doesn’t really count in my quest to see all of the national parks. Grand Teton is gorgeous. It is one of those rare parks that doesn’t really have a gimmick other than it’s own beauty. It is Helen of Troy and beauty is enough. Glacier lakes that are as clear as they are cold. A mountain range with no foothills to dull its steep ascension. Wildflower meadows with herds of grazing elk and bison. No there are no caves, no eruptions, no lava flows to check out. This park asks nothing more of you than that you sit back, relax, and just breathe. Seven hours was not enough to see the whole thing but I did hit most of the highlights. There was the most expensive lodge in the national parks system, the summit of Signal Mountain, and one of the most well designed exhibits I have seen in a national park – the Native American art exhibit at the Colter Bay Visitors Center.
This post is short on sass and for that I am sorry, but I must admit I am getting a little weary. I’ve covered a lot of ground on this trip so far (almost 2600 miles) and I am starting to tire of the road. For this summer anyway. Next summer there will be no international travel for me – just thousands of miles across the USA. So, until tomorrow, or next year, whatever the case may be…
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