Yellowstone, Part Two

After a good night's sleep, a cup of coffee, and some chores to get my blood running, I finally sat down and uploaded all the videos I shot onto YouTube. They required a little editing and a bit of patience, but I think it's all been well worth it - except my camera shot the videos in 1080p, so they seem a bit stretched out after the upload. I haven't been able to fix that, so I'm sorry. :(

But here they all are, in chronological order:

The Dragon's Mouth, 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzoJCWVBzXA
The Dragon's Mouth, 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIoqz6Bh2VI
The Mud Volcano: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHvN3DVhreI
A boiling pool, and some Bison: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVEOWBQDzXg
A Bison scares the crap out of some tourists: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQhJPYOU-TE
OLD FAITHFUL!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihGwGN5an-M
The Artist's Paintpots, and the all-natural hot tub of doom: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIu4hQqgtBk
BONUS VIDEO! What happens when Yellowstone tourists spot wildlife from the road: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ6rsJKIaQI

Enjoy, friends!

-Grace

Yellowstone!

What can I say about Yellowstone that could capture for you the sheer awe and raw splendor of it all?  Nothing. Not a damn thing. There is simply no way to encapsulate the beauty of Yellowstone, not with all the words and photos and videos that all of America combined could possible write, take, and shoot.

Yellowstone is massive beyond visual comprehension, it is active and teeming, everything is utterly alive - even the very air seems to have an energy all its own. I am a Colorado girl, my upbringing completed in the quiet serenity of the Central Plains; my parents' rural 5-acre property, though often dry and crunchy to behold, harbors a nice variety of wild fauna. I am accustomed to the sound of wind in wide-open spaces, I am comfortable surrounded by the silent guardianship of solitary pine trees and prairie shrubbery. Despite all this prior experience, I was wholly unprepared for the unadultered wilderness that is Yellowstone. I wish I could explain to you how vast, how quiet, how pure the place is.

I think I was most blown away by the active volcanic sites. As I mentioned before I am a born-and-raised American central-westerner - although my family did our fair share of traveling for the Air Force, I have never been anywhere even close to volcanic activity of any kind. So to see mud that bubbles up from the ground, and natural pools of boiling water, and caves that continuously belch a heady sulfuric steam, surrounded by a vast and unblemished landscape, was so much more than I could have possibly anticipated. A fascinating, dangerous beauty.

We arrived at the park right at 8 am as the gates opened, and drove through the park for 8 amazing hours. There was much more to see than we could have fit into the time we had at our disposal, and the summer heat and mountainous altitudes sapped us of the energy required to hike the paths to some of the most popular attractions. We did, however, see so much more than I had hoped for: Elk grazed lazily on the lawns of the quaint supply-shop towns, guarded from a safe distance by park rangers and photographed from much less-safe distances by fascinated tourists. Bison herds with their calves in tow stopped traffic in both directions to cross the street at a pace they found quite comfortable. Sparrows dove for my head as they swooped through the currents after flies. A particularly overly-warm ground squirrel laid itself out flat like a rug on the pavement underneath our rear bumper at a rest stop, trying to cool itself in the shade it cast.

We stood with the crowd and watched as the Old Faithful geyser erupted, as it has reliably every 93 minutes or so for the last 100-someodd recorded years. We climbed a very steep, very rickety walkway to the top of a small bluff to see the hot springs that reminded me of so much watercolor paint, surrounded by green grass and brilliant travertine, running along vivid orange mineral trails to bright turquoise pools of water. We kept a safe distance as wild bison took a dust bath beside a boiling mud pond no more than 500 feet away, and then laughed as it strolled down the paved walkway in the direction of some startled and quickly-backtracking tourists with nothing more on its mind than munching on some sweet summer grasses a little bit down the hill. And in between all of this excitement, the countryside - lush and treed, run through with sparkling rivers and waterfalls - scrolled past the open car windows, bringing with it birdsong and pine-scented breezes.

On our way out of the park towards Montana, we took the scenic highway and drove through the Beartooth Mountains. The road switchbacks and curves to hug the mountainsides, and Rich reports that driving on it makes you feel very much like James Bond. The place is a perfect blend of high plains dotted with fallen stones and sharp craggy peaks skirted by trees, all highlighted by snowpack that is still two feet thick in places. In the middle of a July so hot that some parts of the country have melting mailboxes and airplanes that sink into the pavement, I had to put on a sweater as we passed through the peaks.

This is not quite as detailed a post as I had hoped to give you, my faithful followers. I wish I could detail the entire day for you and capture the splendor of it all, but alas, it is all something of a blur. We began at 6 am and ended the day sometime around midnight, and we drove the whole day through - unfortunately, the details have been a bit lost on the shuffle. So, the best I have to offer you are the pictures and the video we took while we were there. It doesn't capture what it's like to be there, I highly recommend you all pay it a visit for yourself, but hopefully it will give you all a vague idea of what you're missing by not going.

Enjoy the multimedia after the jump, friends - fairly image heavy, consider yourselves fairly warned.

I will post more media from this adventure soon, there were far more videos than I could comfortably cram into this humble post. Stay tuned!

About the lag...

Sorry about the lack of fresh updates, my fellow travelers-at-heart!

We have been in Billings, MT for 5 days helping a family member in need with some chores, errands, and home modifications. It's been a busy week and we haven't had time to do any site-seeing or interesting photography, and I would hate to bore you all with stories about watching satellite and washing dishes!

I write this from our home-base in Cody, as we've come back here for a day or two to return a teenager we borrowed for some extra assistance in getting decking built, flooring installed, and acreage of property mowed and trimmed. We will be returning to Billings on Friday the 13th.

But we'll be going 8 hours out of our way to drive through Yellowstone National Park on our way up. You'd better believe that I'll be inundating you all with pictures and video - I have never been through Yellowstone, but Rich has and he knows all the best spots to show off! I am so excited, I can barely contain myself.

Look for updates from our Yellowstone trip this weekend! Until then, stay cool - it's still hot out there.

-Grace

Independence Day in Cody, WY

As far as I'm concerned, there is no better place to celebrate Independence Day than a small, sleepy Western town - the most American of all places.

July 4th brought with it unrelenting sunshine and afternoon temperatures at 9:30 in the morning, and all along Main Street, people and lawn chairs gathered two rows deep in tiny patches of shade. Rich and I, along with Rich's family who are hosting us during our stay in Cody, being a little late to the game, decided the best course of action was to plan ahead and we picked a spot of sidewalk where we predicted some shade would end up about half-way through the parade. I did my best to not feel superior to the people who had chosen Instant Gratification instead and ended up in the broiling sunshine far before the festivities were over. 

The town of Cody, WY is proud of its rich history, and rightly so. Being founded by the famous Buffalo hunter/gunman/popular showman and hero of every boy in America in the last part of the 19th century until early in the 20th century, Buffalo Bill Cody, every nook and cranny of every business in town is rife with echoes of its Wild West past. The Independence Day Parade is a yearly expose of everything the town of Cody is proud of, and every person in town turned out to enjoy it. Marching bands from the four surrounding community schools proudly played familiar patriotic and western tunes. Many floats featured local personalities in victorian-era Western dress - one float even featured a saloon setting with cancan dancers and a mock brawl between outlaw cowboys dressed in all-black. A woman from a local business which specializes in old-time-style photographs walked up and down the sidewalk promoting her business, lightheartedly dressed in a beautiful red dress which was open in the back to reveal a corset and pantaloons! I have been to very few places that are so educated about its history, and are so eager to display it to every person who travels through. It was truly a delight, and an excellent choice of holiday entertainment; I could not have asked for more. 

Seeing as how the Independence Day Parade was my first event as a new blogger, I took a shamefully low amount of pictures. I'm so sorry! I suppose you'll just have to take my word for it when I say it was quaintly pleasant, neither too over-the-top nor too understated for the crowd of locals and tourists. It was neatly balanced between the old, antique cars and WWII-era airplane flyovers, and the new, performances of all kinds by local children and proud displays by local adults and businesses. Next time, I will be sure to take more photos and video so as not to disappoint my readers! 

If one happens to be in Cody any time other than the July holiday and is interested in a display of the town's history, one must only go as far as Old Trail Town. Technically classified as a tourist attraction, Old Trail Town is a painstakingly maintained outdoor museum of the area's very first structures, as well as a huge selection of implements, tools, furniture, and household items which were used by the very first settlers of the region. This area is especially famous for not only Buffalo Bill, but also for The Hole in the Wall Gang. Featuring the outlaws made famous in the 70's by Paul Newman and Robert Redford, Butch Cassidy and his partner in crime The Sundance Kid, Old Trail Town owns and proudly displays the actual wood cabins used as hideouts, safe havens, and frequent places of business for the criminals who evaded authorities for years and captured imaginations for decades afterward. Also featured here is the homestead cabin of Buffalo Bill, a saloon with bullet holes still in the front door from a shoot out with The Hole in the Wall Gang, an original barn containing many intact horse-drawn carriages and covered wagons, and the respectfully-relocated gravesites of several colorful regional legends. But the museum is not without gravity - the curators have made sure to include information about the area's native peoples who were chased out by the white men, and there are several respectful and beautiful exhibits about who they were, and everything they lost to us. Being as fascinated by history as I am, I could have spent all day in this fascinating place, where history is carefully preserved as accurately as those who did not live it are able; I sincerely apologize that my humble photos and video could not capture how fascinating the place is to me. 

You'll be happy to know I took a much better record of this place, than I did the parade. 

The Western states are battling a crippling drought. It has been dry for years now, but this has been the hottest summer on record (and it has barely even started!) and so the entire Great Plains region is little more than a gigantic tinderbox. In light of this, many places - including my home-state of Colorado - have banned the usual fireworks displays, because a few minutes of brightly-colored exploding gunpowder is hardly worth setting the entire prairie alight. Cody was not one of these places, although many surrounding communities cancelled their displays, and so in a show of solidarity with our countrymen (especially our fellow Coloradans) who have been affected by the ruthless wildfires we decided not to support the town's fireworks display. Instead, Rich and I patronized a popular saloon (which, I believe, is classified as a bar-slash-restaurant which features entertainment), had a locally-brewed rye lager and listened to some local music while the occasional colorful explosion peeked through the front windows. 

Tomorrow we head north to Billings, MT. Whether we return to Cody for a brief period afterward, or whether we head east towards Fargo has yet to be determined - it's all part of the fun, you see, not planning every detail. Until then, however, I humbly submit for your enjoyment the photos and videos I have taken of our "adventure" in The Wild West. I apologize for the poor quality, but I assure you I have learned my lesson this week: as a blogger, always ALWAYS remember to grab The Good Camera before leaving the house. 

Watch this space for updates from Montana! Photos after the jump. 

from Cody, WY

Made it safely to Cody last night, at just about midnight. It was, in a word, a brutal 8-hour drive.

The air conditioning in the van, which Rich eagerly had recharged and was very excited to be able to give to his ailing father, stopped working before we'd even left town. Which was really unfortunate, considering it reached 106 in Denver, and we were transporting a small cat with a lot of black fur. We ended up having to wet a small towel, then wrap some popsicles in it and place it next to her in the kennel, in a desperate bid to bring down the temperature in there and stop her from panting. It worked sufficiently enough, but none of us were very pleased about the situation. Rich ended up with a two-inch sunburn on his left kneecap from the unrelenting sun, and in a small moment of logical oversight, I nearly wrecked my car by changing lanes after I'd put my reflective windscreen in my window to try to keep the sun off me. Still, we made it unscathed.

Yesterday, I learned that a cheap tarp can be worn clean through by a piece of hemp twine, if you happen to be going 85 mph and the tarp bubbles up with the wind and rubs against the twine for 8 hours. We were using the tarp to hold a spare mattress to the top of the minivan - a mattress we will need at our next stop, since the spare bed is so uncomfortable it is impossible to get a good nights' sleep on it, and we may even need it at this stop for the very same reason. But let me tell you, when you get as wound around the axle as I do, spending 8 hours waiting for a mattress to come flying at your windshield at any moment is rather nerve-wracking. Thanks to my diligence we had to stop and readjust it three times; I felt badly, but at least we stayed safe the whole way down, which more than makes up for the time we lost.

Rich's mother's house has all the comforts of family and home. I feel very comfortable here, I can putter to my heart's content. This is the perfect location for me to get over the erroneous preconceived notion I somehow developed about this trip, which is that I'll be tent camping for the next 6 months. The reality is that I'll probably be spending a large chunk of time in the comfort and luxury of people's homes, and I am certainly okay with that.

I'm getting gently teased by the Rich and his brother for "having discovered the internet" and disappearing from social activities. I suppose I should remedy that.

More updates to come, after we get out and about and I have a chance to take some photos for you. Until then, some photos from the last time we were here around Christmas. This place has a beautiful, sleepy background majesticity that I am in love with; I am excited to share more photos with you all.

And one more, from summertime last year. Apologies for it being crooked, I took this from the top of my parabola on an elementary-school playground swingset.