The sky darkened as I headed from Grand Teton National Park toward Yellowstone. Great burn areas appeared, where blackened tree trunks stood out stark on a barren landscape. The temperature dropped. It all felt quite ominous. I'd left Grand Teton later than I meant to (what else is new?) and now had only a few hours to drive through Yellowstone if I wanted to get to my Montana campsite before dark. But I was still determined to do some sightseeing.
At West Thumb, I found myself immersed in a sea of Chinese tourists as I walked around the boardwalk, admiring the deep blue hot springs. Then I arrived at Old Faithful to find a near-silent crowd already gathered. By luck I'd turned up just when the beloved geyser was supposed to go off. But for fifteen minutes I waited. Every time a little water burbled up, everyone in the crowd gasped and raised their phones, ready to record. Then the burbling would die down. After the tenth such burble, a woman in front of me complained, "Fake news!"
Old Faithful did, of course, eventually erupt.
Next on my whirlwind tour, I was pleased to find an empty parking space at Midway Geyser Basin, which houses Grand Prismatic Spring. The spring is a lovely thing I remembered as being my favorite attraction on the one day I'd previously spent in Yellowstone, a decade and a half ago.
On that earlier visit, I'd seen Grand Prismatic from up the hill at left, above. It turns out you can't see so much from down on the boardwalk, but it's still a weird and inspiring landscape.
At the beginning of the boardwalk trail, I'd noticed a sign warning people that it was windy and we should hold onto our hats. And what did I see at Grand Prismatic? Lots of hats. There are four in this picture alone.
I was so determined to see things in Yellowstone, I in fact did not make it to my campsite before dark. When I pulled into the Bakers Hole campground it was black out, damp and chilly. It was a weird and welcoming relief to see my last name written in dry-erase marker on the reservation placard. But reviews of the campground had mentioned bears wandering through, so as I made hot dogs in the dark I peered with my headlamp into the surrounding bushes. I saw no eyes reflecting back.
The next morning was dreary, in the 50s and pouring. I always have full rain gear, so I put it on and set about trying to make breakfast, but every time I opened the car doors to access food or gear, buckets of rain sheeted in. Breakfast in town began to seem like a good idea.
While navigating out of the campground, I saw a man standing under an awning outside a giant RV. A panel was open on the side of the RV, where a massive flat-screen TV was playing. I boggled at this. Why was the man standing out in the cold? Why did his RVs need a television he could watch from around the campfire? Why even leave home if you're just going to watch Good Morning America? All of this only quickened my need for a soothing egg and sausage biscuit.
I had a long way to drive that day, so I wanted something fast. McDonald's it was. But when I got inside, a long line of Chinese tourists stood at the ordering screens. When I finally made it up to a screen, I saw that the menu items (painstakingly labeled in both English and Chinese) were all lunch options, though it was still solidly morning. I did not want a burger and fries for breakfast.
I felt a bit desperate until I saw a gas station, and went in to find microwavable biscuit sandwiches. I also picked up some much-needed condiment packets. Gas stations are icky repositories of unhealthiness, until they are your savior.
The drive through Montana was depressing. I passed through some of the most beautiful country in the state, which I could barely see because it was so foggy. My windshield wipers squeaked constantly at the varying quantities of rain, which the wiper settings were never quite right for. And then I began seeing interpretive signs.
Knowing how long I'd be in the car today, I took the opportunity to get out and read each sign, stretching my back while I was at it. The signs told the story of a fateful night in 1959, when an earthquake triggered a massive landslide, causing 80 million tons of rock to crash into the valley and dam the Madison River to form what is now called Earthquake Lake.
But this was more than a geology story. It was a human story. Many families were camping under the full moon the night of the quake. They woke to a sound like a freight train, and some stepped out of their tents or trailers to see the ground rolling like ocean waves. One survivor reported feeling the ground drop from beneath his feet, while others had their clothing literally torn off from the hurricane-force wind generated by the landslide. Twenty-eight campers died and others were injured, and the ground itself was torn in two, leaving fault scarps that I could see for myself. After the river was dammed, sections of forest were flooded (see pic above), and cormorants came to nest in the dying trees where there had been no cormorants before.
At the terminus of the interpretive signs was an education center, and I took my time warming up and drying off in here, absorbing all the information and survivor stories. I was grateful for the shelter, and for the opportunity to learn about this staggering event I'd never even heard of before.
It was hands-down the most fascinating and moving interpretive center I've ever been to, and I highly recommend a visit if you find yourself near the west side of Yellowstone.
The rest of my drive wasn't quite so compelling, but the rain did let up by the time I hit the Washington/Idaho border, to be replaced by a smoky haze. I landed in a dispersed camping area at a ski park, and found a pulloff next to an old lift that seemed no longer functional. A weird golden glow was seeping through the smoky air, painting the land in unearthly colors.
The next morning, I debated whether to sleep in longer, but decided to just get up and make breakfast. And just as I was packing up breakfast, an ATV and truck arrived. The guy on the ATV indicated that I would have to move so the truck could get in. I apologized, telling them I thought the lift wasn't operational. He said, "We're getting it started up today."
Then I was glad I hadn't decided to sleep in.
I moved my car down the road and found a semi-level spot where I could hide under the hatch, away from the returning rain, and do some internet research for the next part of my trip.
This need for research would become an onerous part of my trip. Part of it was my fault. I not only needed to know where I could camp, how long it would take to get there, where I could grocery shop on the way, etc., but I also wanted to know what were the very best attractions in the area, so I could make the very most of my trip. (Yes, it is obvious which side of the maximizer vs. satisficer continuum I am on.*)
Before I left the area, I went to investigate a nearby sign, and got a surprise when I wandered behind it:
Someone had made a shrine with discarded items, from toys to gloves and hats to a water-damaged copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It was a little bit creepy.
I proceeded through eastern Washington, unable to see much because of the smoke.
One of my few memories from that long day was of trying to cook my last hot dog and do some more research behind my car at a rest stop, while in the parking space next to me a young couple argued on and off for an hour over whether to take a nap and who should sleep where, breaking into occasional angry laughter.
It wasn't until I began to inch northward into the Olympic Peninsula that the air cleared, and in the oncoming darkness I could just see the profile of the Olympic Mountains on the western horizon. Now I wished my long drive that day had gone a bit faster, so I would have had some daylight to see properly.
It was 10pm when I pulled into my destination for the night: a casino about 45m east of where I planned to enter Olympic National Park the next morning. Some casinos offer free overnight parking to travelers, but I'd never taken advantage of such a service before.
I went in to register—this required getting a player's card, which came pre-loaded with $5—and then figured that since I couldn't do anything else with the $5, I might as well gamble. The casino was very nice, quite new, and near-unoccupied on this evening. For the life of me, I could not figure out how to operate the slot machines, whose user-friendliness was on the level of a VCR that is only programmable in UNIX. I had to get an employee to help me.
Within a few minutes I'd won about $4, and decided to call it a night. I'd meant to have dinner there, but since I'd arrived so late and was now exhausted, it seemed best to skip it. In the morning, I'd need to leave early to go get a site at the first-come, first-served campground in the park, so breakfast was out too. I felt bad—when a business offers free overnight stays, it's understood that you should spend some money there in compensation—but here the casino effectively paid me $4 to spend the night with them. And since returning here from the park would be a 1.5h drive, it seemed unlikely I would repay them anytime soon.
Oh, well. I'll have to eat there next time I go through.
I brushed my teeth and went out to park my car in the corner of the RV area. It felt like a safe place. There were many RVs.
In the morning, I rolled out as soon as the Casino opened and I could get in to use the bathroom. Grateful for the safe night's stay, I headed west, unaware that trouble would soon begin.
Tune in again soon!
*I will note that even while composing this blog entry, I read an extensive array of articles to determine which presented the most suitable explanation of the maximizer/satisficer theory.
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