Today was Yellowstone and Grand Teton Day. I paid my 25 dollars for entrance that was good for both parks, and started making my way towards the geysers at Yellowstone.
The drive from the entrance to Old Faithful was pretty unimpressive. There were lots of half dead trees on either side of the road blocking your view of anything that might be interesting. There was a small part of the road where you could see a big lake, but as far as lakes go, nothing too exciting. It was a lake. I got to Old Faithful and read some of my book waiting for it to go off again. As I waited more and more people gathered around the viewing area. And then more people came. And then more people came. There were so many fanny-packed rednecks ogling at a hot pillar of water it was disgusting. I didn’t even bother to stick around and go see the rest of the geysers. It was just water shooting out of a hole in the ground. Didn’t need to see it at different heights and waste an entire day looking at the other geysers. So after my basically obligatory visit to Old Faithful and Yellowstone, I headed to the Grand Tetons.
What was really dumb about the people sitting around me at the Old Faithful was that I heard no less than 7 people make the joke “oh, that was it, let’s go home!” joke whenever the geyser started to shoot out water but stopped after a second or two. I knew it was coming the first time, but it wasn’t funny then. I know all the other people who said after were within earshot of the first guy, because I was within earshot of them all. It was very unnecessary, and I hated each person who said it more than the person who said it before.
The majestic Grand Tetons stood in stark contrast to the bland, overpopulated Yellowstone. Thousands of feet of rock bursting out of the flat ground and topped with snow, the sun setting in the background behind them. There was nothing to block your view of the mountains once you got into sight of them. I drove around the park for a few hours looking at them from various angles and places. I was planning on spending the night in the park and charging my battery, but even if all the spots weren’t full, the $54 electrical hookup spot would have kept me away. The only thing left were $19 primitive campsites, with not so much as a shower around. I said hell no to that idea and started down the road out of the park. Before I got too far though, I stopped at one of the picnic areas and had myself some dinner by the fast paced (and very cold) Snake River. It was very picturesque. A clear river flowing over round rocks at my feet, grasslands for a mile or two, and then the snowcapped Grand Tetons in the distance. Couldn’t ask for a better place to eat dinner in all of Wyoming.
After dinner I headed towards Idaho. I stopped on a mountaintop sort of close to the Idaho/Wyoming border and stargazed for about 2 hours. It was a bit chilly (60 degrees), but it was really clear and really dark. The only thing that put a damper on the spot was the intermittent passing car, but they only passed by about once every 5-10 minutes. I decided I’d had enough when a deer scared the shit out of me.
I was sitting on the hood of my car parked next to a giant wheat (or at least really high grass) field. There wasn’t so much a cricket chirping for the entire 2 hours I was stargazing, so it was totally silent (except for when a car would pass). All of a sudden I heard some rustling in the wheat field next to me, coming pretty rapidly and straight towards me. I burst into action. I hopped off my car, jumped in the driver seat, and turned on the lights as quickly as my body would allow me. Once I had the lights on, the rustler presented itself in my headlights as an average sized deer, just crossing the road. Still, it got my heart pounding, and I’d decided I’d had enough stargazing for the night. The fact that it was 2 am also attributed to my ending the session.
I drove to the nearest Wal-Mart, which was about 45 minutes away, and bought some apple fritters and milk for dinner. I ended my day by watching most of Episode I before my eyelids would have no more of being open.
