GNAST

Sunday, July 12, 2015

Stuck in my head this morning.

The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
²He makes me to lie down in ~~green pastures~~ nice hotel rooms;
He leads me beside the ~~still waters~~ Snake River.
³He restores my soul;
He leads me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.

⁴Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of ~~death~~ grizzly bears and completely anomalous tornadoes,
I will fear no evil;
For You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil;
My cup runs over.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days of my life;
And I will dwell[a] in the house of the Lord
Forever.



TO BOISE AND VARIOUS SITES AROUND SOUTH CENTRAL IDAHO 

Day Nine

Starting: West Yellowstone, MT
Destination: Twin Falls, ID
Distance: I wasn't paying attention.

We weren't awake, broken down, packed up, and into Yellowstone by like, 7 this morning, so the detour up to where we were told big game awaited didn't happen. Instead, we spent the absolutely beautiful Montana morning up at Lake Hebgen and Earthquake Lake... which might have been the better choice.

It wasn't the kind of side-trip full of selfies and smiles. It was very, very sober. It's a mass grave. It's hard to be perky. But it's mesmerizing and awe-inspiring, and contemplating how multiple six-million-ton boulders moved half a mile in 20 seconds is unfathomable. We climbed up to the boulders and took the rocky trail down the landslide area to the visitors center (and got a stamp, whoo). We saw a few pikas, which are still adorable. But mostly, the wind was chilly and the sun warm, and the magnitude of the geology was just mind-blowing. Everyone needs to go up there. NPS has done an absolutely terrific job on the auto-tour with informative pullouts and there's an actual seismograph in the VC. And the views into the Madison River valley are phenomenal.

It was Saturday morning, so we had to fight Yellowstone traffic to go bum the WYVC wifi again and get gas, but then we were off into Idaho.

I will be happy to leave Idaho.

Really, all that needs to be said is that it combines the worst of Kansas and Wyoming in terms of long, boring, crop-filled straightaways that are also full of massive plains storms and OH HEY TWO FUCKING TORNADOES. I may not sleep tonight. It's 1am Eastern time and I'm contemplating making an MRE. We saw the one by Idaho Falls and Rexburg (we did stop and see the Temple at Rexburg), although I lied to myself about it and didn't fully acknowledge it until getting confirmation later. We dodged big storms all the way to the EBR-1 Site. Which was eerie--the wind was whistling as we walked in--and AWESOME in a nerdy way. It's an old nuclear reactor site, using atomic power for electricity, and completely cleaned up so you can run around AND YOU CAN PUSH THE EMERGENCY SHUT DOWN BUTTON. Also, you may catch a paranoid old man asking the bemused employee "is it true there's a nuclear submarine down in the aquifer?"

Oh, and the outlying cabin is apparently "potentially contaminated with hantavirus" while also covered in former radiation signs WHAT THE SHIT IDAHO DOES THE CDC KNOW ABOUT THIS?!

Seriously, this is exactly how the zombie apocalypse will start: old nuclear site + virus.

Anyway, we then scurried on to Craters of the Moon.

Which was not to be, because when we got out of the car at the scenic overlook, the wind was blowing steadily at 30-40mph and a storm broiled over the plains. By the time that we got to the VC for our stamp and to talk to the kind people there, we were watching lightning bolts behind the volcano cones. It was pretty epic--but also, and the kind employees agreed--it was NOT camping weather... anywhere in south Idaho. In fact, they said, one couple had been camping there the night before and their tent had nearly rolled over with them in it. They checked the weather for us, promised that Idaho was never like this, and recommended that A, we sleep inside, and B, we head down to Twin Falls, since it seemed less... meteorologically volatile.

As we sat in the car discussing our options, every time we thought about getting out and braving the distant storm, more lightning would hit, until Aaron saw what he describes as an afterimage of the bolt preceding the actual bolt. Hard pass, back in the car, straight shot to Twin Falls and a legit building.

This was further emphasized when the massive storm that we had been watching all along developed so much that, about 15 miles northeast of Jerome, a condensation funnel (i.e. tornado) began to coalesce in a wheat field out Aaron's window, heading northeast and then we REALLY booked it straight south. Neither of us panicked. But we did sit in Starbucks for an hour taking deep breaths.

Two. Two tornadoes in Idaho. And every single person we've talked to, either at the Twin Falls Temple asking for advice or at a NPS site or checking into a hotel (you're damn straight we're in a hotel tonight), has sworn up and down "this never happens!"

LIES. YOU ALL LIVE IN A STATE OF LIES. (And potential zombies.)

Tomorrow we may hit up Boise? To see a friend and returned missionary? Hopefully we can hit Hagerman Fossils, the Japanese internment camp, and City of Rocks and actually, you know, get out of the car and do something before making our way to Salt Lake City and then flying back to Charleston, where it may be stormy, but it won't, you know, actively try to kill us.

We're getting a little tired and a little ready to come home.

Or go back to sunny Montana, whatever, not picky. (Apparently Colorado is sunny now too? Hmm.)

Montana morning.

Aaron killed 200 pounds of meat. He could only bring back 10.

Scarp.

Slide area. The discolored chunk on the mountain is the scar where the rest of the mountain quit being a mountain.

Hidden pika!

Madison River valley. Pictures do not do it justice.

The other side of the canyon.

Visitors Center, to the right.

Rock fragments.

Very pretty pink rocks.

Idaho.

Aforementioned reactor.

Craters of the Moon National Monument. Storm coming.

CotM.

Mountain nearby.

why u makin curvy cloudy shapes

Saturday, July 11, 2015

Day Eight

Starting: West Yellowstone, MT
Destination: West Yellowstone, MT
Distance: whatever the loop is around YNP

Sleeping in the car: MISTAKE.

See, we've slept in a smaller vehicle in colder conditions just fine, so we figured that a larger vehicle would also be just fine. It was not just fine. We, uh, actually started to run out of air? Sometime around 5am we woke up breathing heavily and I had to decide if a fear of grizzly bears (why oh why did we sleep in the food container) was worth slow asphyxiation?

Sleep in Subaru Legacies. Sleep in Mazda 626s. Do not sleep in Kia Souls.

And yet, we still didn't get up early enough. Because, you see, Yellowstone is actually the Disneyland of the National Park System. And by that I mean, if you want to go to ~~see Mickey~~ Old Faithful, you have to be at the site by like, 8am. We didn't get in until about 10, so we were pretty damn screwed. Also, it was still about 55 degrees and drizzly, and one of the Visitor Centers said that they were up 25% in visitors. We did hit the Midway Geyser Basin and fought our way through half the population of east Asia and their selfie sticks, but the Prismatic wasn't nearly as prismatic due to the insane steam blowing our way from the incoming rainstorm. Said rainstorm also deterred us from the Fairy Falls area, and LOL there was no getting into Old Faithful. (Don't worry--our Ranger friends assure us that there's nothing missed there, and Aaron sneers that it is a lie and automated.) So the southwestern quadrant of the loop was pretty much... rainclouds, trees, and gaggles of really dumb people.

Southeastern was stormy--we didn't walk Storm Point because of a storm, and the wind off the lake was a biting damp cold that frankly, we had dealt with enough in Colorado. We got our stamp down near Fishing Bridge and wound our way up, seeing plenty of wildlife but none of the big predators. We did see a bison nearly attack an RV, and a bunch of people swarming toward a male elk despite a Ranger standing in the middle of the road, pained, trying to herd them away. There was nearly a pile-up when a female moose was spotted in a meadow, and the poor woman driving the Yellowstone bus threw her hands up in frustration. At one point, we saw a great herd of people pointing toward a cabin, the kind of herd that indicates wildlife--but also a pissed off Ranger and an ambulance? Never found out what that was about, but heard some people mentioning it further up at the Canyon.

We did get into the Canyon at the northeast part, and walk the trail from Lower Falls to Upper Falls. It is a very unforgiving, steep trail and it was nice to stretch our legs. Great scenery. Saw an eagle. As much as we wanted to actually hike something (learned: they are very stingy with hiking trails. I think it's to protect the animals), we apparently didn't have a party big enough to take on Mount Washborn and its grizzly bear population. Also, it was stormy, and we have had enough of being chased off mountains by lightning. Furthermore, according to an eavesdropped conversation between Rangers, the stretch between the lake and the canyon has three grizzly families, with three angry mamas and six cubs between them. And one family is guarding a carcass 80 yards from the road. We were perfectly content not getting out of the car. The north side had the lady moose, and northwest, on the road to West Yellowstone, we watched a small herd of elk with a baby elk lay down and graze in what must be the cocaine equivalent of grass, because they cared for nothing.

We had a great many discussions about the nature of Yellowstone. We threw around words like "neutered" and "wow, this is a really boring stretch of road" before deciding that it was basically Pokemon Snap and readjusted our epic expectations accordingly. Much like how Wyoming and Kansas were examples of God's enormity, and the Rockies were His terrifying awesomeness, Yellowstone is his mercy and longsuffering, because honestly, most people there should be dead of geysers or wild animals.

After finishing our loop, we met with my friend Geoff and his buddy Jake, who are awesome and knowledgeable Rangery intern types, and they led us to a great dinner full of elk and buffalo meat. (Geoff also provided us an itinerary of spots to go to in the park--we tried!) We started to drive to Earthquake Lake after dinner, but were too tired, and settled in at camp instead. Whereupon I discovered a tree in our site very freshly clawed up by a bear and we saw an elk and a fox on the campground. But we had a good night, got half of our thank-you cards done by bedtime, marked up the atlas for the next day, and enjoyed a dry night in our tent. Crazy talk.

I really, really love Montana. I love the cool air, the views, the mountains, the twilight. If I had a bear-proof place to stay, I'd stay there even longer (but the paranoia about smelly things near the tent was wearing on me). I think Montana even slightly beats out Wyoming, although we were only in the very southern tip for two days. I am absolutely coming back to Montana. Glacier is calling my name. I mean, we've had talks about coming back to the Rockies, preferably in a cabin and with kids (so a long while off), but I think I need me more Montana in my life.