2005-10-09

After a night of cold rain and wind I drove Medo down the slickest half-mile of mud road you ever saw to get back on 20/26 West (Wyoming). The landscape slowly became more rugged. The grassland gave way to colorful mesas and valleys with deciduous trees showing off their fall pigments.

The rain turned to mist and then to scattered rays of sun. Eventually I made it to Grand Teton National Park with its pine forests backdropped by snow-covered mountains. For the Nth time on this trip I crossed the continental divide, a completely snow encrusted landscape.

North of the Tetons I drifted into Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone has a few good views, but nothing to compare to the Tetons (and half the other places I've been so far). Also, due to forest fires, much of Yellowstone is burned out and ugly. But you don't come to Yellowstone for the scenery--you come for the geysers and the critters. I skipped the geysers.

Once inside the park I spotted a coyote just off the road. And then a juvenile elk. A little ways down the road found a lone buffalo standing beside Yellowstone Lake. These animals couldn't care less that you even exist. It's like some Jedi came to the park, waved there hands in front of the animals, and said, "You do not see the tourists."

I spotted a herd of bison in the distance gathered around a hot spring. Then there was a herd just off the road, so I stopped and watched them while eating lunch. Some men were photographing them with multi-thousand dollar cameras. After lunch, there was another herd on the road holding up traffic as they slowly clip-clopped their way down the street.

Eventually I found a bull elk sitting pretty beside a river. (These critters are easy to find because there are always other tourists already watching them--actually the crowd wasn't too bad, this being the off-season.) Then there was a couple more elk. Then a whole herd. Then another herd. Then it's like, "oh boy, more elk."

Leaving Yellowstone, I drove all of twenty miles in Montana before hitting Idaho. By now it was sunny and almost warm. I followed 20 South to Rexburg where I jumped on 33 West. Miles and miles of lava beds were followed by the most amazingly flat farmland I have ever seen, all curtained by blue mountains in the far distance. Some of the crops I didn't recognize, so I'm going to go out on a limb and guess they were potatoes.

Eventually, I reached the blue mountains (which aren't blue when you get there), and that's where I'm parked now. The land is arid. And lonely. I'm continually amazed at the lengths of civilizationless space that I find as I move Westward.