Yellowstone, Pt. 9: Some Photos

UPDATE: I recently learned that The Chemist got some kind of recycling job, so he is now a recycler in real life. In the story, he will continue being The Chemist. This update had the sole purpose of making everything less clear and more confusing.

Part 8

After waking up, The Chemist goes to start a fire so we can cook breakfast. Some campers come over and complain about the smell of our self-lighting charcoal, which is apparently oppressive. We apologize and use wood instead.

One shoe is visible in this picture. Whom does it belong to? You will never know.

The Chemist and I are still refusing to purchase firewood, so we use more of the stuff we collected. It's passable, but just barely. C- overall.

I decide to take pictures of the elk and bison right in our campground. During this time, The Recycler, The Chemist, and The Sojourner are all sitting around the fire, talking idly.

When I come back, they inform me that a nearby camper approached them and said, "Really nice Bible study you guys are having," then left.

Here is some stuff I left out of the narrative, because I didn't think it would be important: There are no Bibles in our campsite. No one was discussing anything regarding religion. In fact, all four of us are atheists. This other camper apparently thought three people sitting around a campfire early in the morning meant a Bible study was happening. In fact, she was happy at the amount of Jesus he saw in each of us. She saw us a beacon against sin in the wilderness, the same way I see Bright Spot.

Even worse: We had discussed doing a podcast together called "Four Atheists Read The Scripture" (FARTS, a name I came up with), in which we would read the Bible and discuss it secularly. (Mmm, secularly.) I guess this could be a "Bible study" in the loosest sense, although I imagine it's far from what that camper expected.

I suggest to get a Bible app on our phones and actually have a Bible study, and invite the camper to join us. This plan does not work because I have no service, and the other three are unwilling. I sigh. None of them ever want to do anything fun.

The plan for today is to visit Grand Teton National Park, which is something fun. We all jump in the van.

We first visit a lake, where there is a giant log:

The lake is teeming with insects. They are everywhere, swarming, not unCruiseAmericalike.

The Chemist wants to push the log in the water, just like when we threw that stick in the water back in Part 5. This time, we are older and wiser, and do not attempt it.

The lake has a view of some Tetons, their peaks obscured by fog.

The nearest path is called Lakeshore Trail, and we hike on it for a while.

Another of my favorite pictures from this trip.

I could go on about the serenity and beauty of nature, the austerity, the grandeur, the purity; I could use thick, juicy words like this to try and plant some piece of my experience into your mind -- but it reminds me of the difference between reading Henry David Thoreau, and experiencing the scenes he wrote about. The difference is immense. Even if I could find the best words, and even if I could put them in the right order, you will still not feel what I felt hiking around that place. The only way to get the most out of this blog post is to go see the scenes yourself.

After a good half-day of hiking around, The Sojourner and The Chemist become nervous about bears, so we turn around and head back home.



We drive home from the Grand Tetons and debate whether we should visit one more attraction. In the end, The Sojourner stays back at camp while the three of us move on to Dragon's Mouth Spring and the surrounding mud pools, fumaroles, and hot springs. They are the same as always: Churning, boiling, frothing and steaming over. It is surprising how such an extraordinary geothermal phenomenon has become mundane. I meditate again, this time to the sound of bubbles.

Before we head back to camp, we decide to spend some time sitting and talking by the vast Yellowstone lake. The surrounding forest frames the wide expanse of the lake and far-off mountains. It is before sunset when we sit down, and we talk until the moon is shining in full force. For me, this moment is when the trip feels less like a checklist, and more like authenticity. We talk about things and make some dumb videos. There is no haste to move on to the next sight to see. It is simply a moment shared between friends in the wilderness. I consider the extreme commercialization of Yellowstone. It seems like everything railroads you onto a consumerist, tourist type path. It's not surprising, but this is the moment I feel separated from it all.