Road Trip Day 2: Old Faithful comes through!!!

Hello there,

Wow. This day. Was. Amazing. I'm sitting on my double bed in the historic Irma hotel, founded by Buffalo Bill in 1902, in downtown Cody, Wyoming. It's charming. Even the toilet is old-fashioned, and we are convinced that the place is teaming with ghosts of cowboys and ranchers from the past. I'm in heaven.

Road trip tip #1: Get lots of rest!

We slept like two little babies last night and woke up in amazing moods! I immediately started playing the song "Warrior" by Kimbra and we danced in our hotel room at 7:30am. I put a native american fake tattoo on my arm, and the genius mood of the day was set in stone!

We got out of Utah as fast as we could. Maybe a little too fast because by 8:30am I earned my nick-name, Little Lead foot, and got a speeding ticket. We shrugged it off in the spirit of road trip glory and forged ahead.

The car music was elevated to new heights today! We listened to 80s rock and a Feist Pandora station and were rockin and rolling through the gorgeous landscape of southern Idaho. Who knew it was so beautiful! There is something in the air as you reach the northern mid-west. It's that rocky mountain high! It's like we were sniffing glue.

We entered Montana, and that's when things started to get so beautiful that it was just over. Let me make a plug for road trips at this moment. North America is STUNNINGLY BEAUTIFUL. And Yellowstone. If you've never been, please go. The feeling I have at this very moment about being born in this land is so precious. I love this country. And not so much the government. THE LAND. There is nothing like it. I'm going to have a hard time putting everything I saw into words. I'm not really a poet and I'm definitely not a photographer, but let me show you a little bit of the beauty that we saw today. 

         

 

I picked up a little book by the famous nature lover John Muir. Without him, these National Parks might not even exist. And he described their natural beauty better than anyone ever could. This is an exert from Muir's book, "The Yellowstone National Park":

Yellowstone is a big, wholesome wilderness on the broad summit of the Rocky Mountains, favored with abundance of rain and snow,-- a place of fountains where the greatest of the American rivers take their rise...Un-numbered lakes shine in it, united by a famous band of streams that rush up out of hot lava beds, or fall from the frosty peaks in channels rocky and bare, mossy and bosky, to the main rivers, singing cheerily on through every difficulty, cunningly dividing and finding thier way east and west to the two far-off seas...The wildest geysers in the world, in bright, triumphant bands, are dancing and singing in it amid thousands of boiling springs, beautiful and awful, their basins arrayed in gorgeous colors like gigantic flowers; and hot paint-pots, mud springs, mud volcanoes, mush and broth caldrons whose contents are of every color and consistency, plash and heave and roar in bewildering abundance. 

Muir on the air: The air is electric and full of ozone, healing, reviving, exhilarating, kept pure by the frost and fire, while the scenery is wild enough to awaken the dead. 

I was awe-struck. There was a moment when we were driving past thousands of tall, lush evergreen trees. Billowing clouds set the background and rays of sunlight peeked through each branch. I felt like Muir. I wanted to shout poetry to them! I wanted to yell "Oh, Captain, My Captain!" To the trees!  I wanted to make love to the nature around me! I wanted to stand on a mountain top and sing the praises of creation. There is not a soul alive who would not be stirred by this landscape. It calls out every fiber of hope in your being, every bit of you that believes in love and passion and beauty. If I had a curiosity before in the transcendentalism of Thoreau and Emerson, this trip has confirmed it. To me, God is nature. Encompassing all things. All at once cruel, huge, gorgeous, sweet, tranquil, and wondrous! When you are in Yellowstone, you are surrounded by God. I could go there again and again and it would not be enough. 

Road trip tip #2: Go to the National Parks, you idiot! 

So we made our way to the big tourist attraction, Old Faithful. I was surprised by the amount of tourist buildings and visitor centers around the ole geyser, but I shouldn't be. It's an international treasure. The thing was set to erupt at 5:51pm, so we took our front row seats with all the hundreds of other tourists and waited. And wouldn't you know it, Old Faithful was a bit of a tease! She would spit up a little, and then smoke, and then spit up a little more, and then simmer. After about 20 minutes of this little dance, Drea and I were starting to get impatient. We're from the instant gratification generation! We wanted to see the thing spout, get our little iphone video of it, post it on facebook and skedaddle! But it was taking sooo long. Another clue that the universe does not abide by our self-centered little cyber-clocks. We started doing a little snl skit about city assholes at Old Faithful, "So, like, seriously? This is it? Lame! I thought it would be...bigger." We started to walk towards the car, albeit, a little concerned that we would miss the big blow, and then BOOM! Holy effing shit. OLD FAITHFUL lived up to her name. I was so discombobulated that I couldn't get my precious video! We were laughing and hollering and it was just what it should have been. A precious, exciting moment that could only be experienced in the now. We did get this picture though: 

City A-holes at Old Faithful

On our way towards the east entrance/exit of the park, we drove by not one, but THREE, random, meandering Buffalo. Just taking leisurely walks on the road. If you've never seen a buffalo up close, let me tell you, they are huge! We were told to watch out and not get too close because they like to charge! So we just squealed and took pictures from the car window!

I leave you with this last thought. In a park as large as Yellowstone, there is a lot of wildlife! Buffalo, bears, wolves, elk, deer, ducks, etc. We saw many of them. With so many mammals wandering around, one has to figure in the amount of...poop. There is a lot of poo in Yellowstone! After all, in the words of Jeff Goldblum in "The Big Chill": That's what's great about the outdoors, it's one giant toilet!

 I saw this book in the bookstore: "Who Pooped in the Park?"

 

Then later, I found these two specimens: 

 
Who's poop is this???? If anyone can tell me, I'll give you a Silver Dollar!

So that concludes Day 2, my friends. It was EPIC. I'm so content on the road. I can see myself in another life traveling and blogging and making out with trees. For now, I'm just going to enjoy my few days on the road to Boston, the nature, the clouds, the tunes, the trees, the parks, and the poop.

See you on Day 3!