Thank You, President Ulysses S. Grant!
I always thought Teddy Roosevelt set aside Yellowstone as a National Park, but to my surprise Congress passed the law creating it and President Grant signed it into existence in 1872 making it the FIRST NATIONAL PARK in history.
Getting there is half the beauty!
The drive from South Dakota to Yellowstone is a dizzying display of natural beauty. One cannot do justice to the scenes flashing before one's eyes with the camera as there is no way to stop the car with the frequency needed to capture shot after shot of utter beauty. Eventually you just give up and give in to the thrill of being a privileged spectator. We entered Yellowstone through the East entrance and were headed to the West Thumb and our campsite. We marveled at the natural cycle that is so visible there. A forest fire had left miles and miles of burned pine trunks punctuated with new growth steadily pushing upward.
The first impression of the park is RESPECT. The respect with which it has been created,
protected and maintained is palpable. Mother Nature did some of her best work
here and most certainly the human hand has been hard at work to honor her.
There is a line to finalize the registration of the site Don
had reserved online for four glorious days of communing with nature. It seems
that all the employees of National Parks are super perky, with high energy
welcoming smiles and sparkling eyes; a façade the young man checking us in
manages to maintain as he impresses on us the real and present danger of bears
at the campsite, "Let me make it easy for you", he says with an
ebullience his drama teacher would be proud of, "Nothing in your tents except
your sleeping bags and your bodies; no water bottles, no cosmetics, NOTHING.
Place any food in your vehicle or in the bear proof boxes. Keep bear spray with
you at all times. Do not brush your teeth at your campsite or at the public
spigots..." He went on, with that optimistic enthusiasm for quite a while
until I was quite sure I would never make it back alive from my necessary
nocturnal visits to the toilets. We had ONE can of bear spray. Do I take it
with me as I traipse to the toilet and leave Don as unprotected bait in the
tent or do I take my chances in the great outdoors and take the spray with me?
More on that difficult decision later,
The campsites are very intelligently laid out. About the
center of each loop are the facilities; heated buildings with flush toilets and
sinks. In the center of the building is a dishwashing facility with very heavy
doors, presumably to keep bears from pursuing the odors of food scraps that
might linger. All in all one comes away
with a clear impression that the danger of bear confrontation is very real and
very scary. But there was one other threat to our tranquil embrace of the peace of nature...rain. Heavy rain and temperatures to challenge a tropical girl like me. Optimist that I am, I was convinced that the forecast would change and that all would be good...
So, we get our tent up, laying down a heavy carpet we had
carted along to try to keep the interior of the tent as warm as possible. In view of the threat of rain we opted for
the cots instead of the inflatable bed as they make for a quicker get-away when
breaking camp. I continued to labor under the impression that the weather forecast was as bogus as the promises of
rain in Texas generally are so I conceded to the use of the cots fully
expecting that the next day we would exchange them for the bed. Camp set up, full as ticks on Johndrow chili
we had brought from home, we headed for Old Faithful.  |
| Right on time! 5:26 pm! |
We had a delightful chat
with a ranger who filled us in on how to properly use the bear spray (again
with the bear danger) and where to go to sight Grizzlies. I really did want to see some bears but not up close and personal. Old Faithful is surrounded by seating and people started to gather, asking "when is it going to go off again?" The ranger was ready with an answer and sure enough, just as predicted Old Faithful sputtered into action at 5:26 pm. OF is not the most impressive geyser in the park, just the most famous. There are others that shoot much higher but their eruptions are very unpredictable.
Then, as we returned to our car, it started to
rain. And it got cold. Still full from our Johndrow chili we decided not to try and cook in the rain and took
refuge in the car to read. About 8:30, cold rain still pelting down I turned in
to bed, bemoaning the fact that weather forecasters in Yellowstone are much
more accurate than they are in Texas!
The sleeping bag, recently acquired with the promise of keeping tootsies
warm even at 20 degree temps proved to be utterly truthful. I zipped myself
into that baby, including my head and fell soundly asleep. The first time I heard the call of nature, I
pulled out my rain poncho as the rain was still falling and confronted the
previous question...do I leave my husband unprotected or do I take the bear
spray? At that precise moment some
animal, which I later learned was an elk, let out a bone chilling sound. It was something between the shrill sound of
the brakes of a freight train and an elephant in heat. Screw my husband! I took the bear spray! Click the YouTube video below (not mine, credit is in the video) to hear what it sounds like. Wouldn't you have taken the bear spray?
But, I must say, I slept like a baby! The sound of the rain
pelting the tent was like music, the warmth of my sleeping bag was like a womb
of peace and protection and I allowed myself to be engulfed by that sensation
and slumber peacefully. Vaguely aware of the complications that the weather
we're going to present in the morning I buried myself even deeper in the
sleeping bag. The morning found me with a sleepless husband, a damp carpet
on the floor, 41 degrees Fahrenheit, a drenched tent and the imperative need to
accept the fact that not only was it going to rain all day Tuesday and
Wednesday, it was going to snow on Thursday! We were prepared for the cold
nights and had packed everything from wool caps to chemical hand warmers for
this amazing adventure. But constant rain and snow was not what we had in
mind. So; with a heavy heart, we pulled
up stakes (a cliché that in this case is absolutely accurate.)
We went to a restaurant, within the park for breakfast after
stashing a very wet EVERYTHING into the appropriate containers. Breakfast was shared with an enchanting
couple from France so I got to dust off my French. We took in a couple of other sights but sunshine was required to truly enjoy the prismatic pool. We did catch a glimpse of coyote, leisurely hunting near a walkway. |
| What it looked like compared to what it could have looked like with some sun! |
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| Kepler Cascades |
Our next challenge was to reassign the days that we were
giving up in Yellowstone to some other destination. We saw with great
consternation that the weather system affecting Yellowstone was also affecting
every other place on our itinerary toward the Grand Canyon. Zion National Park
was reporting the tragic loss of seven lives in flash flooding. Wanting to find dry conditions to allow our
gear to dry out we pointed the car toward Laramie, Wyoming .
 |
The fellow in the silver car thought he had it made! He pulled out from in front of us, barreled down the empty lane to his left and cut across the stalled cars tying to make an escape through a side road...only to discover that he was then trapped with bison in front and behind him!Onward, with new and unexpected destinations!
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