There ain’t enough dance halls in Texas
To keep my heart and mind occupied
I’m trying it all the time
Yeah I’m out there every night
My truck has seen some miles
To find the words to write this song
And get me back on top where I belong
So if I’m not over you yet
I must be having fun all wrong– Roger Creager
There is a reason that tourists get a bad rap. Like the character Trey in Sun House who starts bagging peaks as trophies and forgets the love of climbing in pursuit of the lure of fame. My stops in states from Michigan to North Dakota were similar exercises in bagging states, ticking off steps on the way to another goal. Is it any wonder that the people of Paris, Rome, or even humble Asheville get ticked off at being crossed off someone’s list? Glacier interrupted that for me, but didn’t squelch the impulse completely.
Heading out from Coeur D’Alene, I spent a few minutes on a road that was increasingly a trail until it dumped me out on I-90 heading east. Interstate Driving is not my preference in any circumstance but there are scant alternatives in the area, so like David James Duncan’s Risa, I climbed up and over Lookout Pass before crisscrossing the Clark Fork more times than one does the Caney Fork between Nashville and the Cumberland Plateau. Once again, the smoke of western wildfires enveloped the road with an apocalyptic haze.
Not long past Bozeman, I took a right and headed south into the valley of the Yellowstone River. It would have been faster to head for West Yellowstone, but then I would not have gotten to bag the Roosevelt Arch at the northern entrance to the park. Now here’s the thing: this is an iconic shot, and from the right angle, you can make it look like this monument rises up in the middle of nowhere, with no one else around. That’s the magic of properly framing the picture so that the shops off to the left are out of the frame, pausing for the cars to loop through, and waiting your turn until the Germans who are bagging their picture have finished so you can get your’n. It still looks pretty fucking good, even for all of that.
So does most of the rest of Yellowstone. Standing near the arch, I wondered when I might encounter some real, actual wildlife. As I pulled away from the Ranger’s station at the entrance, I wondered why those damn Germans were stopped in the middle of the road, only to notice the herd of elk up in front of them. Fair enough. I was fairly overcome with the majesty of the landscape, a sensation that was only tempered by the temperatures that were dropping with the sun. Having the top open was a good idea in the daylight, but it was becoming a liability in the evening.
Arriving at Canyon Village, I luxuriated in the idea of being at one campsite for two nights in a row. With the exception of one night in a hotel, I had spent the previous week moving from place to place, setting camp in the evening and breaking it in the morning. My set-up consisted (and still does, I suppose) of a tent that is nominally for six. Its virtues are manifold, including the fact that I can stand up inside it and its aforementioned bargain price. Inside, I had a cot (purchased used through Facebook marketplace), a foam pad from WalMart, and the big ass battery to run my CPAP.
Trial and error had brought me some additional insights, which is the story of my life, but these insights were particularly on how to sleep well and not get drowned by the condensation in your faux F-15 fighter pilot mask of a medical device. In addition to wearing the flannel jammie bottoms tucked into thick wool socks, the long sleeve shirt, and the hoodie, one wants to actually get inside the sleeping bag, cover that with the blanket, and zip the bag up around one’s head. Added to this, take that fleece you brought along but aren’t really using, and without putting it on, zip it up. Run the CPAP tubing up one sleeve and down the other so that you now have some insulation against condensation. You’d be surprised how well someone who does not particularly experience claustrophobia can sleep in such conditions.
And so I did sleep, waking to find the predicted rain had not yet arrived and ready to have the one genuine hike of this adventure. Lacing up my boots, I walked along the north rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Now, I have been to the Grand Canyon and by comparison, this canyon does get to claim grandeur if, and only if, one is consistent with applying the “of the Yellowstone” bit to it. Something that the other Grand Canyon does not have is a bunch of little chimneys rising out of the canyon walls that blow out whisps of steam on occasion. Remarking on this phenomenon to a geologist friend, he seemed to think it was a cause for alarm rather than wonder (like that the whole place could blow up at any time). The same thing could be said for the Lord El Shaddai, and I keep trying to hang around that dude, so why not marvel at Yellowstone while I’m at it?
By the time I got back to the tent, the rain was starting to come in. Given my need to do laundry and shower, this was not a big deal except for the fact that they clean the showers twice a day at Canyon Village and one of those times was right when I wanted one. Nothing to do but watch my clothes tumble in the dryer. And read in my book as the broken and possibly psychotic mystical character Jervis begins to rail against bumper stickers demanding him to visualize a kind of peaceful world that does not and never has existed, saying “Screw ordering random motorists to remake the universe to suit their prejudices.” Instead, Jervis bids “Peace to that royal fuckup ‘they neighbor’ and to Jesus’s hilarious command to love him….Peace to the meth thugs who beat my brains and stomped my throat when I imperfectly served the same Love.” Peace, I thought, to the woman who I loved and now resent for what seems to me an abject abuse of my intention to keep at least some of the commitments that I had made to her, even if I could not keep them all. Peace to her who received a generosity and mercy not required by law and who is not able or willing to return the same. “The fuck, Teej.” Peace.
Maybe there is no crying in baseball, but there was quiet sobbing in the laundromat at Canyon Village. I hope I did not scare the children. Having eventually finished the spin cycle and showered, the rain subsiding in the meantime, I ventured out to see the renowned sites of Yellowstone. Geysers are otherworldly. Coming down one slope onto a relatively open space, I saw steam and water erupting from what looked like the surface of the moon.
On closer inspection, what I saw resembled more of a portal to another land, like something out of Tolkien or C.S. Lewis on one of his more fantastical days. The color was not blue; it was not aqua; it was not even lapis. It was cerulean. I wondered if my grandfather, who had worked in Yellowstone as a young man, ever visited this same place. I wondered what he was seeking to find, or maybe to get away from, when he came to out west.
My grandfather’s father was a railroad executive, the Secretary of the Louisville and Nashville Corporation. Because of this, my grandfather had a pass that would let him ride the railroads anywhere he wanted to go. In the late 1920s and early 30s, as the Great Depression was starting to take hold, this made him something of a hobo, albeit a relatively high class hobo. For a couple of summers, he came to Yellowstone and worked in the Old Faithful Lodge as a bellhop. As I tried to ask the person at the front desk if there were any historic photos of the staff, I found myself choking up on every other word. When I reached the bell station, I was completely unable to speak.
My grandfather had fourteen or so grandchildren. I was the ninth, and with seven other boys and one girl ahead of me, the novelty must have worn off by the time I arrived. It doesn’t particularly bother me that I may not have been as close to my grandfather as some of his other grandchildren, but it surprises me that I should feel so much emotion about being in the place where he had been, probably almost a century before. Then again, I was feeling rather emotional about the whole day.
Something, it seems, was shifting, not just under the surface of Yellowstone but also inside of me. I had come, and I had seen, but I was being conquered, overwhelmed and absorbed by what I was experiencing. This is, I hope, the difference between being a tourist and a traveler. Or maybe it’s a pilgrimage? I don’t know that I set out with exactly that intention, but it wouldn’t be the first time that I waded into an adventure without a real clear idea of what I was hoping to come out with. Those things have a tendency to show up, if we keep our eyes open.