goodbye, Yellowstone
It’s pretty sad leaving Yellowstone. The bison, the beautiful and vast meadows, the flowers, I will miss them all! We had some very very close encounters with bison near the road (thankfully, we were inside the car); we saw a herd of pronghorn antelope in the Lamar valley; visited lush waterfalls; saw some amazing pools and hot springs; spotted a fox near the petrified tree; almost ran over a long colorful snake on the road; learned about the sad history of the wolves. Andrew met up with a fellow Adventure Rider and moto’d some beautiful single track trails in West Yellowstone.
On our last day, Ingrid and I went for a hike up a steep hill across from the campground. It was our first official mother and daughter hike. I wanted to show Ingrid how wonderful hiking is so I was really hopeful that everything would go well. We packed some potato chips and she got to wear her CamelBack with water in it, and her little Teva sandals, and her Junior Ranger baseball cap. It did go well, and she enjoyed the hike despite the heat and the swarms of grasshoppers that sometimes ran into her. We took our time and stopped a lot to look at bugs or flowers or just the view. At the top we talked about the hard work we did to get here and how good it feels to be alone at the top of a mountain, enjoying the cool breeze and the silence. There is something about being in nature that quiets the chatter in my mind, and makes me feel peaceful and elated at the same time. I feel just as happy as when I am dancing, except that with dancing it is more of a vividly alive feeling. I hope that Ingrid will experience this someday too.
Yellowstone is definitely on the list of places to come back to, “someday”, when Ingrid is old enough to do some real hikes.
