It continued to rain all day on the day we drove into Yellowstone National Park. We drove right past the Grand Tetons on our way north, but you'd never know they were there. Still, Yellowstone has a way of impressing -- rain or shine -- as soon as you cross the entry gate. For a long stretch, the south entrance runs along a cliff overlooking a narrow river, and that river was riding high and fast with all the recent rain and snow melt. It made an impressive companion as we worked our way toward our first visitor center and gift shop. (There, my husband picked up a Yellowstone-branded telescoping walking stick he used and liked so much that a couple days later, we grabbed another for me. Each of ours in our signature, preferred gamer colors, of course.)
Next, we stopped at the West Thumb Basin. Though arguably one of the less visually-impressive of Yellowstone's geyser basins (what a thing to have so many to compare!), it's still a thrill if you're hitting it early in a visit to the park -- and especially for the friend traveling with us, seeing such marvels in person for the very first time. It rained on us the whole time we circulated the boardwalk, but that also intensified the steam rising from the various features. Very beautiful, and almost alien. I've heard a trip to Yellowstone described as a trip to an alien planet, but I'd go farther and say it's like a trip to
multiple alien planets, as you can visit different areas quite distinct from one another, and
each like nothing you've encountered anywhere else on Earth.
Back in the car, where we gradually made our way counterclockwise around Yellowstone's Grand Loop Road and arrived at our home for the next few days, the Lake Lodge Cabins. We were expecting perhaps a cut above "walls and a roof," but they've been rebuilding some of the lodging in this area near Yellowstone Lake, and we wound up with something pretty close to a standard hotel room. We had just a little bit of time to decompress before it was back to the car for a long drive to a dinner reservation at the Grant Village Fish House. (If you've never been, everything in Yellowstone is a long drive.)
On this particular drive, we had our first major wildlife encounter as we came upon a bison just ambling right there along the road. As our stunned friend took photo after photo, my husband and I assured her that while this was indeed cool (spectacularly close for your "first bison in the wild," in fact), a few days from now, a bison encounter wouldn't even be sufficient for her to take out a camera. She, understandably, doubted us. (We would ultimately win the "bet.")
The dinner we ate was good enough, but the reason I mention it is that it gave us our third straight day of "awkward encounters." Our poor server might well have been having her first "un-shadowed" day ever on the job -- she seemed both young enough and nervous enough. She'd never opened a wine bottle before, and wound up splitting the cork in half and losing part of it inside the bottle. This left her so flustered that when she took off for help, she left her serving tray at our table. While I don't think we did anything to make her feel particularly bad about any of this, she pretty much avoided our gazes every subsequent time she stopped by for the rest of dinner. (But hey, I once worked a little less than two months waiting tables, and was as bad at it as I hated it. Nothing but sympathy here.)
It was still raining as we drove back to the lodge for the night -- the combination of rain, windshield wipers, and lodgepole pines pressed in on the road forming an especially hypnotic challenge to maintaining focus behind the wheel. But good news! This was the last rain for the rest of our time in Yellowstone... a time I'll pick back up with in a future post.
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