Changes

 

You guys. I feel like someone should tell you about Wyoming. It’s just hanging out there in the middle of nothing–windy, unpopulated (it has, like, 127 residents and 2 Senate seats; that makes sense), a good setting for Annie Proulx stories, but otherwise forgettable, right? Oh, and Yellowstone. Yogi Bear. Old Faithful.

You guys. Yellowstone is actually a f*#king death trap, possibly the portal to the underworld. No–it is the portal to the underworld. The earth here is literally boiling up all over the place. Impossibly deep pools of water bubble and churn, sending clouds of steam across the sky. Around every corner, scalding water spurts from rocks, mud hisses and gurgles, heat blasts from below, warming the cold October air. Everybody talks about the earthquake potential along the San Andreas fault or the Cascadia subduction zone that might one day wipe out the Pacific Northwest. But Yellowstone is sitting on one of the planet’s most active volcanic, hydrothermic, and earthquake systems.

AND the beasts. Grizzlies and black bears are, apparently, waiting for the chance to devour any careless camper who forgets to lock every last scrap of human-touched anything into a bear box (even water containers!); bison and elk and moose graze in vast meadows, looking all peaceful, but get a little too close and they will kill you; wolves and coyotes and probably other hell demons lurk in thick forests. Egads.

This is to say, Yellowstone is amazing. Awe-inspiring. Unlike any place I have experienced. The spectacular beauty of the earth, the dynamic, dangerous earth; the creatures, unfettered, who live out their lives as their ancestors have for millennia, the wide skies, star-spangled in the deep darkness and clear or cloud-covered in the day, the lack of any outside noise (no cell service or internet)–all forced a change in me. I loved strolling with my happy dogs in the few approved pet areas, watching the stunning geological displays, feeling the bite of wind, the warmth of steam, even the rain and snow on my face. I left Yellowstone a bit different, a little better, I think. Like Teddy Roosevelt, who came to Yellowstone intent on progress and development and left with a determination to preserve this place forever, I am grateful that such a bizarre and primitive place still exists.