Into the Yellowstone

July 14th 2014

       Years ago as a youth I looked at an extended calendar that showed the turn of the century, 1999 going into 2000.  I discovered myself shocked, afraid at the sudden thought that my parents were going to be dead of old age by the turn of the century. I saw their deaths like a mountain range rising up before me.  It was a profound shocking sadness.  As I thought about it I got the idea I need to get through this on my own.  My parents never said anything to me about dying.  They never sat me down and said they were going to die and I should feel this way or that way.  This was a feeling entering my life, and I needed to deal & define it my own. 

       Now here on my own, enjoying coffee at sunrise in Wyoming, a pure red sunrise, no clouds only red air, deep red air. Rock Springs, Wyoming.  (my Father was born 100 years ago yesterday) Every time I see a sunrise it is good. One sunrise deserves another.  We drive north into a woodless land. The hills rise like a slow stormy sea. The car and camper toss like a boat. The Wind River Mountains appear like a coastline in the Northeast.  Small herds of wild horses dance through the waves of sage, the foam of their tails confused with the clouds.  We enter the town of Pineridge, on the banks of the mighty & majestic Green River.  The taillight on Neda is out.  We stop at an auto parts store, replace it, and enter the mountains of the Hoback River.  Its an easy valley glide into the crowded tourist streets of Jackson Hole.  We pass its city park with its arches of elk horn entrances, its pizza bars, and rafting shops, it’s level ground mountaintop easy access businesses, and mountain-man fast food, teenage delights of wilderness, dangerous, quick and manly. The town quickly ends.

      The Tetons appear to the West.  Their jagged tops streaked with snow, an impenetrable wall of indescribable beauty.   All we can do is snap a picture and hug.  Thirty three years of marriage and here we are speechless and in love. 

On into the Yellowstone we go.  Past Yellowstone Lake, up onto the great divide.  We stop at Isa Lake. It’s really just a pond that bleeds into both sides of the great divide. It is covered with lily-pads that Sue photographs; yellow flowers we have never seen the type before.