Yellowstoneeee!!
I am combining the days of Yellowstone into one not because the park is not freakin awesome, but becuase we have been so busy and I have to limit myself in how much I write about Yellowstone.
A few days ago, we arrived in Americas first park. I immediately got chills hearing the ranger tell us welcome to Yellowstone- I know I'm a lame-o. However, I think everyone should gets chills entering this amazing park that is conveniently right here in the United States. Below Yellostone lies the largest super volcano on this planet! Half of the entire North American continent would have seen this super volcano erupt millions of years ago. Earthquakes occur daily in Yellowstone- they are just so far below the surface that we do not feel them. This huge plume of magma just a few miles underground is responsible for creating the prehistoric looking landscape that is Yellowstone today. Seriously, I feel like dinosaurs should be roaming around not tourists. On our arrival, we traveled to one of Yellowstone's most iconic attractions- Old Fatithful. The area surrounding Old Faithful is kind of like the head quarters for the park. Everything is very commercialized, but the architecture is rustic and beautiful. After running around the gift shop and buying multiple park paraphernalia, we walked over to Old Faithful just in time to see it erupt. I looked over the heads of photographing tourists to see this historic event. I have to be truthful, I think I built Yellowstone up so much in my mind, that it could not meet my real expectations. I looked around me at hundreds of people perched in stadium seats cliking away as the geyser quietly erupted, and I could not help but think I was at some football game. I could not find this euphoric feeling that filled me at our previous locations, and I thought Yellowstone would instill in me the strongest sense of nature compared to these past trips.
I tired not to focus on this feeling too much. Instead, I focused on just Yellowstone, as a park onto itself and not compared to others. I walked on every designated path and viewed the various geysers, hot springs, and fumaroles. We did not really hike in Yellowstone like we did the other parks because the professors were not familiar with the trails, and we had a time constraint with the park being so big and there so much to see.
Our campsite here was vastly different than Gros Ventre in the Tetons. Here, we were right next to our neighbors and about 15 feet from the bathroom (I can't complain about that). However, at Stockade Lake and Gros Ventre, I felt like I was an explorer, like I was the person who was discovering the beauty of the Tetons for the first time. At least, I was discovering it for myself the first time. Since I was young, I wanted to travel and see places outside of Alabama. I am so close to my family, but I knew that I would have to one day leave them and find my own happiness. I would have to find myself. That is why I was fixated on going to college out of state, even if it is a few hours away. In my mind, I felt like if I did not leave the state for college, then I never would. Anyways, this brings me back to Yellowstone. The park was amazing, a place that contains so much history and everyone should see. However, at Yellowstone, I felt like everything had been discovered for me, like in was being show someone else's accomplishments and I was supposed to be in awe and take a million pictures. After traveling and hiking around in our previous locations, I was not used to the feeling of waiting in line to see a geyser, or staying on the designated path, squished in by hundreds of others doing the same thing.
I will never say that I am disappointed in Yellowstone. I really enjoyed my time there, just look how much I spent in the giftshop. Instead, I will say that my time there was just of a different experience that was necessary for me to have. Without this experience, I would not have valued aspects of the other parks that I did not value before. I would not have seen the bigger picture, and that is how being in the most least expecting places, places where I can only hear the wind and sometimes cannot find the trail, have had the biggest impact on me. The Grand Tetons are an example of a location where I always pictured my self exploring when I was younger. It now represents a place where I broke through the line of trees to find a breathtaking view of a valley. And I could look over this valley and see no one else. It would just be nature and myself and how we fit together to form something beautiful. (Oh the Granola Group would be there too but in my mind I am alone and dressed in traditional Native American garb). The Badlands now reresent a place where I could look out and not even be able to make out where the ground ends and the sky begins. They were harsh, and they reminded me of the respect the natural world calls for, and how lucky I am to live in a home where I do not have to worry about being cold at night. (The Badlands were freezinggg at night).
Yellowstone is something different, and coming from an immigrant family, different does not mean bad. As a Sustainability major, Yellowstone made me happy to see so many people, traveling from all parts of the world, enjoying and respecting the natural world. It made me proud of the United States and to be a citizen. I had no idea that it contained this much beauty. Mainly, Yellowstone made me respect how this life is not simple and it is not all romantic. There are many parts to it. Just how I was caught up in a form of manifest destiny romantic idealism before I came to Yellowstone. It reminds me that we have to find our happy, which might not include following the millions of people to Yellowstone like I thought it would. Instead, finding my own personal happiness, might just mean I leave the path every now me then, as was done in the Tetons.
I am not praising the Tetons over Yellowstone as we did get more time in the Tetons. It might have just been all the hiking that made me remember it more. There was one time in Yellostone when we went on a mini hike. It was a cloudy and slightly rainy day and we had gone to see our last site- the Grand Prismatic. I finally made my way over to this gaint pool to find it very beautiful, but masked by the amount of steam it was producing. It was hard to see the pool through this thick fog. The beautiful colors of the pool would reveal themselves every now and then through its white cloak and tease me with there vibrancy. After eating lunch, we decided to go on a short hike that would take us to an overlook of the Grand Prismatic. The trail took us straight uphill, and at times the steepness made me feel like I was crawling up instead of hiking. However, we finally got to the top and I gazed in wonderment down and the Grand Prismatic. Again, that feeling of adventure filled me and I could not help but feel in awe at th beautiful pool and it's surrounding landscape. I finally found my happy in Yellowstone. It happened to be a the top of a large hill, where I could see the true beauty of the Grand Prismatic cleared of its once shrouding steam. This is what I remember about Yellowstone, and I am so fortunate to have found it our last day there.
Grand Prismatic!!
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