Greetings From Bozeman

Well. I am indeed in Bozeman, in the great state of Montana (just for tonight, though). And yes, I realize that I haven't updated for months. I will be glad to explain myself, for those who feel they need an explanation, when I am ready to return to real life.

For the moment, however, I merely wish to meditate on the fact that Yellowstone National Park is a gorgeous place, and my detour through there on this trip was worth all the extra money spent on gas (which is actually not that much, hooray for the Honda!) and every weird look I got because I was traveling by myself in said national park (you just don't see very many women--or anybody--alone in Yellowstone). I didn't get to see as much as I would have liked, because I only had one day. What I did see was, however, for the most part lovely (of course). I think it's amazing, the way you're just driving along down the road and all of a sudden you see clouds of steam billowing up out of the ground. Even though you know it's there, that that's partly why Yellowstone is a national park, it's kind of surprising. It's also a little weird to think that you're driving around on a volcano that didn't release all it's magnma.

When I drove into the park, the ranger handed me, along with my park map and newspaper-thingy, a slip of paper informing me that "although bison may appear cute and docile, they are actually ferocious wild beasts who have on occasion gored moronic tourists to death" (o-kay, so that's not an exact quote). I cannot imagine why anyone would think that bison appear "cute." They look to me to be pretty mangy, slobberly, unfriendly creatures, and I really wouldn't want to get in the way of one of them. Furthermore, there's this picture I've kind of grown up with, of a bison trying to stick it's head in the window of my aunt's Yugo (this was not a Yellowstone bison but, I believe, one of the herd around Cheney, KS, although I am not sure). I was not there at the time, but I have seen the picture on several occasions, and thus keep the windows of the Honda firmly rolled up when bison are nearby. I do not want any bison sticking their heads into the Honda, especially seeing as they're nearly as big as the Honda. Anyway, I think the bison are perfectly fine as a part of the landscape, but I'm not going to mess around with them and I can't see why anyone would want to.

I have been to Yellowstone once before, when I was fourteen and my family took a trip through the western United States, but it was kind of weird how little I remember. I remember the bison in the Whiskey Flats (they were blocking the road ten years ago; today they were just laying the fields), and the store at Old Faithful felt familiar, and I remember that my sister was obsessed with Old Faithful. She wouldn't let us leave until she had seen erupt "one more time." I also remember that Mammoth Hot Springs was incredibly colorful and beautiful. It is beautiful, but a lot of the terraces don't have active springs, and for the most part it wasn't as colorful as I remember. This could be because I was a lot more easily impressed when I was fourteen, but it could also be because, according to the signs and the little trail brochure, the activity around the springs changes a lot, so much and so often that there very well could have been more active springs ten years ago.

It's still impressive, in terms of actually beauty-in-the-moment, but it's also impressive, perhaps more so, because the landscape is so dynamic. Yellowstone was probably a very different place, in many areas, when my great-grandparents spent their honeymoon there in the twenties, and not just because there are more--and different--roads and building than there used to be. The rock formations (I'm not sure rock is the right word, but lacking a more geologically accurate one it will have to do) around the springs were different. They did not see what I saw today (at least at Mammoth Hot Springs and probably in the geyser basins) and I did not see what they saw. It's easy to think of a National Park as something that is preserved so that it will always stay the same, but today I was reminded that Yellowstone at least is also preserved so that it can go on changing in its own way, so that I can see the same things my great-grandparents saw, and the same thing I saw ten years ago, but differently.

Well, tomorrow it's back to Bellingham and real life. Happy Labor Day, everyone.