Saturday, September 17
I pinched my nose and went back into West Yellowstone for our packing-up-coffee. I was done first and after the morning’s organization, we went toward the park. A short traffic line at the gate was quickly passed and I presented the Golden Ticket to the ranger at the checkpoint who waved us by.
We went down a forest road closely resembling the one leading to our prior campsite, with a key distinction being that there was a lot more traffic. Yellowstone gets a lot of traffic. For many visitors, it’s essentially a drive-thru park and our experience would not be so different. We stopped at a turnout and walked up to one of its famous hot springs. Sulfury steam rose from the water and its Technicolor mineral deposits along the shore captivated the eye. Visitors are led to this particular spring by a boardwalk, which is decorated with signs bluntly warning us not to leave the path or risk death.
As I left the springs, I saw a buffalo sitting in front of the tree line some distance away. Visitors along the boardwalk were snapping photos of it and I added my own camera to the volley. I was amused to hear a couple speculating on whether or not the buffalo was stuffed until it turned its head to settle the question; “Maybe it’s animatronic!”
Yellowstone does have a bit of a reputation as a being a very “Disney World” park. Coupled with the fact that up until this point, we’d enjoyed more than our helping of awesome sights, I wondered if we might be too-cool-for-Yellowstone, but I dearly enjoyed the drive (and also the knowledge of just how stupid that thought was). The roads are thoughtfully arranged to bring visitors close to its sights and make sure the driver is always treated at least a mountain range whenever a view can be spared. We stopped to see waterfalls, vast volcanic walls along the roads, and simple serene creeks. At one point, we landed in slow traffic near a four way intersection and saw the cause, a small group of bison were casually grazing and resting beside one of the roads. A ranger in his patrol car sat opposite of the flow of traffic and occasionally urged motorists to not stop and make an obstruction or to warn, “If you’re driving, you need to not be taking pictures!”
We observed the Yellowstone River from multiple points along where, over countless millennia, it has carved out its own “Grand Canyon of Yellowstone,” a watery knife patiently making its way through at least two ages of volcanic stone. We took some pictures.
We wound up and down the roads wrapping around the park’s tallest mountains and come down to a plain hosting a river popular among fly fishermen. Herds of hundreds of buffalo could be seen in the distance across the plain, setting a wonderful foreground under wooded foothills before the mountains we had just traversed. A group of pronghorn deer ran across the road. I sat in warm gratitude for the fact that places like this still exist.
Any idyllic natural splendor from that moment was amusingly blasted into a state of surrealism as we arrived at the next wildlife encounter. We had been quietly playing Bob Dylan on Dad’s iPhone, but the next track was “Fuck the Pain Away” from his copy of the Lost in Translation soundtrack. Lazily recited lyrics of psychosexual intrigue and the accompanying bass line pulsed as we passed another group of buffalo almost within arms’ reach.
