14 Aug 2008

Sunday, August 10th

I don’t know where to begin. We’ve done so much these past few days (without showers and without internet)—it’s unbelievable! Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. Ultrashort visits to Montana and Idaho. Geysers and lodge-pole pines and buffalo. I feel like we’ve seen more buffalo (aka, Bison) than there are deer in Pennsylvania.
I’m tempted to resort to Kerouac’s “Wow” and just leave it at that. But then, this is supposed to supplement Jared’s amazing photos and not simply be my reaction to them.
So our adventures “began” Sunday afternoon. We made a tourist-typical trip to Old Faithful. I spotted a group sitting on a bench near the legendary geyser and asked when it would next spout in its o-so-faithful way. The man happened to own a (non-digital) Nikon camera, which sparked a conversation with Jared, which left me standing there with the man’s two “younger companions” (I assume they were his children)—brother and younger sister, both in high school. I told the guy I liked his shirt. It had appeared to be one of those Hawaiian-style summer shirts but was covered with traditional scenes from Japan instead of flowers. And so started our hour-long relationship, while waiting for Old Faithful to blow, with a family from California. Good times…
Afterward, Jared and I took a walk in the park through geyser-land. The bright-blues, the neon-oranges, and the gaudy greens created by these sulfuric pools dazzled our eyes.
A ranger stopped us to say the Beehive Geyser would be going off in five minutes, and he thought we might like to see it. We did. So we sat ourselves down on the wooden-plank path and got our cameras ready. Some time later, the super-pressurized water shot 200 feet into the air, cameras clicking wildly. The water began to fall in our direction, and everyone fled, except us. Something inside us said getting spit on by a geyser would be an experience worth our while. And it was.
Next up was Artist’s Point, on the other side of the park. It also was jam-packed with tourists. And though meeting people is great, we were in the mood for an “off-the-beaten-path” sort of adventure. Then, we saw a sign. And that led us through a very quiet forest and up a hill to an amazing overlook called Point Sublime. There we saw the most beautiful rock formations and colors, and trees doggedly clinging to the steep sides, and a river winding around far below. To be honest, with all my adventures earlier this summer, the natural beauty of the landscape and the thrill of walking along a cliff’s edge—these were things I’d experienced before, and I was feeling a little jaded. But for Jared…well, I’ll let him share about what he saw and felt. Yet I was struck by his courage—he’s got asthma and a fear of heights, but he led the way up a hill thousands of feet above sea level and right to the very edge to get some amazing photos. Yes, I was impressed. And then as we stood there, staring out over the landscape, which the artist Thomas Moran described as “beyond the ability of human art” to depict (though he still tried to paint it) …as we stood there, and Jared offered up words of thanks and awe to his Creator, I saw how foolish I was. Seeing my friend filled with wonder filled me with joy and shame, and a tear wound down my cheek, in imitation of the river far below disappearing over the horizon.
Alright, enough drama for one day.