Yellowstone

Finally back, a few days to re-enter, nap, be patient while waiting for energy refuel. Flying 4,000 miles and driving a total of 2,500 miles. It was a blast. Youngest grandson a completely wonderful travel companion. My energy was good, though my back was giving me fits.

Decided this was going to be a "Heritage Trip" - my grandmother left Missouri at age 5 in a covered wagon and they ended up settling in Snake River, Wyoming, eventually landing in Rawlins for the remainder of her life. We all went in and out of Rawlins - and also lived in Casper. High Country, even the dessert - thin air, and before this last boom, the sound of silence reigned along with hawks, eagles, herds of antelope and deer, and in the north, elk, bear, and bison. The horizon lasts forever, the sky is a deep shade of blue with huge clouds and the depth looks like you can get lost in it as you gaze up with feet planted firmly on earth.

All the grandkids need to see the land and remember before the pine beetles (allowed to eat on the pines all winter as well as summer because global warming does not allow a long enough cold season to kill) take all the forests. Before man encroaches so far, the wildlife fades away forever. This trip back, I noticed the herds of antelope and deer were nowhere to be seen - a few strays here and there - not many. One lone, tired looking bison (buffalo) wandered across the ground by Old Faithful as if to herald the triumph that the geyser would indeed blow, even if he (the buffalo) never made another season.

Yet, there was a bittersweet pride - this land is my land!

We ran into a rainstorm heading into the Tetons - jawbreaker sized hail pounded the car and the biggest raindrops we'd ever seen. The Tetons loomed in the back of us with their majesty and snow covered peaks - a song burst out on the radio making me cry, "I see my reflection in the snow covered mountains......" The pounding of rain and hail on the sagebrush acted as a pestle against a mortar to make the most exquisite of perfumes!

So next post - perhaps the Tetons - or the Hot Springs in Thermopolis - or the Wind River Canyon where one can see the Cambrian and Pre-cambrian era rock, across the Wind River Indian Reservation - the Buttes -