Five Routes Coming and Going

Yellowstone Part 1

The granddaddy of them all, the place that created a seismic shift in the concept of public lands, the national park that defies comparison to any other among America’s best idea, Yellowstone National Park includes bubbling mud, softly cascading creeks, wildlife and clusters of eager tourists ogling them, powerful gushes of hot water and steam forcing their way up through the earth, and contrasting flows of turquoise water tumbling into golden canyons.  If every blogger, every author, every photographer, and every artist captured its magnificence in prose or paint or print or pictures, it still would be inadequate to capture the ambiance and awestruck grandness of its beauty.  Nonetheless, we try.

Like a majestic island in the Wyoming wilderness, five entrances allow the teeming multitudes of gawkers to reach Yellowstone’s scenery.  Open year round, the northern entrance accesses its famous stone arch proclaiming the words of Teddy Roosevelt, “For the benefit and enjoyment of the people,” and at the opposite end, seasonal tourists pass smoothly between Coulter’s Hell and the Grand Tetons, but my introduction to Yellowstone National Park, while including these routes, began after scraping the sky along the Beartooth Pass, which winds its way between Montana and Wyoming through the Custer National Forest.  When aspiring to a final resting place, skip the pearly gates and ask for the Beartooth entrance to heaven.

Yellowstone Part 2

My return visit cuts through the center of the park.  In from the west, out through the east, and thereby I easily boast having experienced all five viewpoints, of which others may only see one or two.  The harder dilemma, however, the challenge of the prioritization of one view over another perplexes me.  As vastly different as the terrain and natural features encompass the overall park, each passageway offers drastically varied experiences to me.  While in Yellowstone, a single human may see a grizzly bear, may photograph a galloping buffalo, may witness the speed of a gray wolf skirting through grasses taller than the mammal itself, may hear the bugle of an elk before its presence is visible through a grove of aspens, and each creature’s presence captivates and alters the viewpoint of the visitor.

Likewise the entrances display the power of an earthquake, the grandeur of approaching cragged mountains, the tranquility of a lake leading to watersheds of the Atlantic Ocean, the statement of a visionary president, and the perilous twists and turns and gasps reaching above twelve thousand feet in the air.  Pick a portal and find your favorite; choose one or two paths into and out of the natural brilliance of Yellowstone National Park.  Be bold and tackle them in progression over years or over a summer.  Drive away from one view and promise yourself to return to another.  Above all else, get yourself to Wyoming and choose your gateway into heaven.

A View of Alaskan (Part II)

 

 

A View of Alaskan (Part 1)

A Taste of Alaskan

Brewery Bound

During my first voyage to Alaska, I partook in an activity I rarely experienced in my corner of the world: bicycle riding.  Admittedly, I experienced a wealth of activities in Alaska that eluded me in my southern lifestyle, but pedaling through the state capital rejuvenated me and reminded me of my capabilities when I push beyond my comfort zone.  To top off the sights, sounds, and sensations, we ride to the local brewery for a sampling of the fare, and when back aboard ship, I order a bottle to remind me of the brilliance of the day.

Fast forward fifteen years and I find myself again on two wheels pedaling my way through Alaska.  So much has changed in a decade and a half: Mendenhall Glacier receded deeply, my skills on two wheels floundered, and my favorite brewery changed locations.  Nonetheless, I keep cycling knowing the end of the journey brings me to the delightful tastes of Alaskan Brewery.  New seasonal tastes accompany and enliven my encore visit and I am reminded how much I enjoy the tastes that a distance of 3,248 miles enhances.  And although the adage sometimes rings true that one can never go back, I did, and deliciousness ensued.

Saying Goodbye to Summer

I sit on my front porch tonight, surrounded by the remnants of the first snowfall of the season.  Mother Nature keeps her own calendar and unlike mine, she believes winter arrives more than a week before the official start of autumn.  Despite thinned blood, I face her head on and I prop up my feet on the edge of the front porch and bask in the waning sunlight and ignore the thirty-six degrees.  I will enjoy my last unofficial day of summer regardless of her parting gift.  Across the country students have been back in school, some for nearly a month, but I make enchantment in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming as long as the season will allow.  But the foot-plus glistening white blanket Mother Nature cloaked over the ground yesterday signals the end of a glorious summer in this spectacular setting.

Melancholy moments such as this one challenge me not dwell wistfully on the time that passes, but to appreciate every day, every sunset, every excursion, every wildlife sighting, and every twinkle of the night sky that I have enjoyed.  The grandest highlights and the quietest periods of reflection combine into a summer full of memories to rival a lifetime of travel.  My summer home, my quirky cabin, my vast mountains, and my porch view surround me.  My skin tingles from the cold air.  The smell of the forest accompanies each inhalation.  A foraging squirrel squeaks out his success in acquiring a stash of pine nuts for the winter.  And to my right, the final sunset of my summer fades brilliantly behind the bank of trees.  My senses savor these fading hours, and I cap off the farewell to summer with the last bottle of beer in my refrigerator: Alaskan Summer Kölsch-Style Ale.  Summer never tasted so sweet.

Honey

Six Horses

Lately my travels have included a new and unusual term: tardy.  Of course, recent excursions have also included a series of new concepts: impetuousness, spontaneity, and broadening (as in my horizons), even more than my past adventures.  I have given up the luxuries of convenient motels and cozy beds and have experienced camping in its most basic form.  Admittedly, the tent in my back seat should provide adequate shelter for this new phase of my travels, but due in large part to my tardiness (and impetuousness, and spontaneity), I arrive at my campsite after twilight and discover the scenes to be too dark to pop my tent without making a disaster of my campsite or a nuisance to my adjoining overnight neighbors.  So by default, I have spent each night at my intended tent sites as the occupant of the folded-down seats of my SUV.  Delano, my affectionate mode of transportation, offers a hard surface, but a half dozen blankets, an air mattress, and a couple feather pillows make even a stormy night an exceptional, restful experience.

On one occasion, I reminded myself that time was of the essence in reaching my campsite to allow for adequate assembly of my tent.  Wavering between my driver’s-side window and my windshield, the sun swayed from front to side as the road twisted and curved and in the back of the car, the sack containing my tent begged at long last to gaze upward at the night sky.  Yet as I rounded a bend on County Road 585, I saw ahead on my starboard side five tall, brown horses galloping intently over the next rise.  Were they charging the length of the fence or towards the rails paralleling the road?  The angle of the road masked their true direction.  As soon as I topped the next hill, I saw the quintet stopped at the fence line, gazing longingly across the road to the corralled field on my right.  There a single gray horse sauntered towards the neighboring rail as if to tease the five stallions and greet their anxious impatience on the opposite side.  I wanted to pause for five or ten minutes to take photos, including a panoramic shot of the two contrasting scenes reminiscent of ladies’ night on the farm, but the clock was ticking, the tent was anxious, the campsite remained more than thirty miles away, and the sun was descending.  The equine meat market remained a memory.

For Sale

Pressing onward, a casual, yellow, hand-painted sign states simply, “Honey for Sale.”  I used the last of my supply only days before and how convenient that I would receive a shopping-list reminder late on a Sunday evening.  But at this hour, the vendor would have retreated for the night.  To my absolute delight, the marketplace remains open, yet unattended.  Making a u-turn, I double back to the wooden structure featuring a bevy of sweet selections.  Buckets and bottles and bears offer a range of sizes and samplings.  A box of free honey recipes adds a personal touch to the fare.  A single metal tin – a leftover from a holiday cookie exchange of many years ago based on its wear – sits simply on a shelf, waiting to be opened by a random passerby.  I try not to spill its contents and I discover nearly twenty dollars worth of previous purchases, and a notepad for a brief comment to the unknown merchant.  I deposit my five spot, scribe a note of appreciation, sign my name and the date, and snag a bottle of Devil’s Tower Honey.

On small country roads, in the corners of Wyoming [or Maine, but that was a matter of firewood], a commodity sits safely curbside.  I am equally delighted by the presence of honey in this vast openness on its own rustic shelves and by the confidence, trust, and sincerity of the vendor.  On a swath of hilly road, a selection of merchandise, a small deposit of cash, and an offer for preparation tips of the treat greet a complete stranger like me.  Trust abounds.  Transactions occur.  The wind blows in the otherwise silent store.  A pound of Wyoming sweetness travels away from its home and in Delano’s possession.  Of all my souvenirs from this outing, a simple jar of honey may be my favorite.  My tent cringes as it realizes it will spend another night unassembled in its sack because the impetuous purchase of my sweet tooth, the spontaneity generated by a simple yellow sign, and my continued broadening of my horizon by taking the road less traveled all take precedence over the sun’s position in relationship to its own horizon.  As I finish my exchange with the wooden box, a van also succumbs to the sweetness and sincerity of selection.  We exchange salutations, and I know another jar of Devil’s Tower Honey will grace the table of a random traveler, and the pot of trust will grow.

Bighorn Mountains, Part 2

 

 

Bighorn Mountains, Part 1

 

 

“Come Up For Air”

Miracle Mile

Twenty Fourteen blurs, even in its recent history.  If life is viewed as a poker tournament, the fates dealt me a pretty lousy hand.  The only pair I saw was two slovenly roommates.  My jack-high described the activity of my car mechanic, not my opening bid.  More often than not I held a hand full of red cards; rarely did I live in the black.  And the one time that I thought I had a truly winning hand, the wager for which I went all-in, the deck was stacked against me and it turned out I held a flush – the kind that sent me spiraling downward in a swirl of, well, you get the metaphor.

As Cold War Kids sing, “I was supposed to do great things.  I cut my ties, I sold my rings; I wanted none of this.”  Now I was buried in a black hole of simple survival, pretending anything mattered, when in fact nothing did.  For seven months, grueling and empty, I crawled back, “breathing one breath at a time.”  I met a few passing faces, some kind, most stymied by their own dead ends, and even though I felt unable to fight my way into the life raft, I knew I did not want to drown waiting for a rescue that might never arrive.  I believed in little, some days in nothing at all, but the oddest thing provided me with sustenance I needed to keep breathing: my work ethic.  But going through the motions, I knew I was working my rebound job in my rebound life, “Put your head down and breathe one breath at a time.”  I hunkered down until the right moment, encouraging myself with a single thought that I typed on my screen saver: NOT NOW, JUST WAIT.  “Where does it lead to?”

“I’ll Be Alright”

I wondered if the darkness that surrounded me this year blinded me.  If I really landed the career I had believed I wanted to have for so many years, would I find the wellspring of happiness I had convinced myself awaited me in a new career, in new surroundings, and in a new part of the United States?  Maybe life just appeared greener on the other side of the Mississippi.  Now opportunity knocks and I swing the door open wide and it feels exponentially more fabulous than I expected.  Dreams coming true fill me with the intoxicating fragrance of outstanding reality and crisp pine trees.  I have finally, “Come up for air, come up for air.”

I receive the one good inhalation I need, scented of success and sage, of triumph and wildflowers, and I fill my lungs with its life-giving oxygen and I take the plunge.  Sure it looks like another career shift, and a temporary one at that, but for the first time this year, I feel the pulsing of my blood in the right direction.  I awake refreshed, unafraid, inspired, and ignited, and not just each morning as I face the day’s joys, but greeting a new life and what may lie ahead in the coming weeks.  I may not have a plan for the coming months, but this feeling of being alive as, “I feel the air upon my face,” both literally and figuratively rejuvenates me and confirms that I am on the road I have always wanted to travel and the drive is exactly what I wanted It to be.  “If you start from scratch, you have to sing, just for the fun of it.”

Just Sitting

With Gratitude

Thank goodness for the Rockefellers.  Unless a student of philanthropy, the general connotation of the name may only imply oil-baron wealth or the occasional contribution to cultural antiquity.  Actually bathing in the gifts bestowed by the family of Standard Oil, may seem a distant relic of the monopolies and generosities of the early twentieth century.  Unless living near the world’s most famous Christmas tree, or working for the National Broadcasting Company in the Big Apple, perhaps those days of bygone gift-giving elude the general public.  Not true!

 

Thanks to John Junior, I enjoyed a spectacular afternoon among the most breathtaking thirty-five thousand acres ever bestowed to the United States.  As a gift to the

National Park Service, and indeed to the world, and on a late summer afternoon to me personally, John Rockefeller, youngest child of the original oil tycoon, turned over some of the most breathtaking, inspiring, and spectacular scenery just down the street from the world’s first national park.  With beer in hand, I toast this wondrous gift, and say, “Thank You, Mr. Rockefeller,” for giving it to me.

 

In Awe

Thousands of adventures await the visitors of the National Park Service.  Driving, diving, hiking, camping, canoeing, kayaking, exploring, spelunking, skiing, sailing, painting, picnicking and partaking in hundreds of unique settings besiege each visitor, fulfilling the interests of each unique observer.  My favorite, and most fulfilling activity: sitting.  Just sitting.  Yes, it is far from glamorous, or even adventurous, but it is worth every second.  Taking advantage of this school ending early for the year, we head to the Grand Canyon State for just that reason.  At the edge of the colorful abyss, on the benches of the Grand Canyon Lodge, I rest my feet on a low stone wall.  I want for nothing.

Sketching nearby, Son #2 recreates the passing clouds blowing eastward sprinkled with tiny figments of color barely noticeable against the blue sky.  In the distance on the jutting vista, Son #1 captures the moment on film, securing the passing image on a fading medium.  I still plan to raft down the canyon’s creating force in the future.  Hiking from peak to valley will someday be checked off my bucket list.  On the canyon floor I will pop a tent and gaze up the tall walls to the shimmering stars.  But for this day, this beautiful, fleeting day, I choose to sit and spend every breathing moment I am able to savor with a view I never want to forget.  Sometimes I like to spend my time just sitting in awe.

From A Distance

The Matterhorn

As a child, I recall driving across the Sonoran desert through the booming town of Blythe, California, for what seemed to be an eternity to arrive at the Happiest Place on Earth.  And the best indicator of when our drive neared its completion appeared in the shape of a fake snow-covered mountain on the edge of Fantasyland.  To this day, I adore the site of a tall structure off in the distance looming ahead for who knows how many miles, whether a bridge, or a monument, a geological formation, or a recreation of the Matterhorn.  It’s the excitement of what’s coming that always tantalizes me.

Arched over the St. Louis skyline, the Jefferson Expansion Memorial served in this harkening capacity.  Descending towards the Straits of Mackinac, Bic Mac straddles the Upper Peninsula and the bottom oven mitt of the Wolverine State, encouraging me to leave the frozen tundra behind me (see “The UP” from July 2012).  Perhaps it’s the excitement of anticipation, but seeing a goal in the distance inspires me to drive onward towards my destination.  And with each passing minute, the towering object grows taller and more defined along the path I am headed.

Spires and Prairies

I recall our drive through the south German state of Baden-Württemberg towards the majestic, misnamed Ulm cathedral with its massive spire. Pausing for lunch seemed almost insulting to the gothic points reaching skyward, beckoning me to climb upward, to glance down over the Danube River.  When we finally began our ascent up the seven hundred sixty-eight steps to the peak, rather than railings we steady ourselves against the stone walls that took over five hundred years from foundation to finish.  And in comparison, the two hundred and twenty stairs to the top of the New Jersey Veteran’s Memorial may have paled in age and height, but yet, as I drove through the New Jersey hills, I found it difficult to take my eyes off the obelisk I approached.

Across a flowing road of the eastern Wyoming prairie, Devil’s Tower looms ominously over the myriad of green rolling hills.  From more than a dozen miles away, it catches my eye.  From a half dozen miles away, it appears to dwarf its surroundings.  From its foothills and border of fallen boulders, only the prairie dogs seem impervious to its might.  Nearly circumnavigating the structure, the road creates a near circle of distance to peer out the moon roof and be blown away by its stature.  For as massive as these structures appear from a distance, beckoning me forward, their height reminds me of my smallness in all the most humble ways.

Crossing The Rivers

The Kootenai River – Idaho



 

The Tuolumne River – California

 

The Snake River – Washington

 

The Clearwater River – Idaho

 

The Lewis River – Wyoming