ON THE ROAD.....AGAIN

This morning I leave Wonderland. And in the early morning hours, Obama signed the bill ending the shutdown and making it possible for our sacred places once more to reopen. I hope by the end of today, the gates will be open and visitors will once more stream into the Park. We need more places like Yellowstone and they need to stay open. Evidenced by the millions of visitors each year to our National Parks, the craving for nature is real in all of us and our National Parks are the best balm I know for this obsession.

It is lightly snowing here in Mammoth, perhaps Mother Nature’s last gift to me as I leave this delightful place.  My leaving won’t be magical like Alice’s or Dorothy’s. I haven’t suddenly ‘outgrown’ Wonderland and haven’t been dreaming. I have no ruby-red slippers.  My packed pickup and I will slip out of the Park quietly, through the morning fogs created by rising steam from the thermal features mixing with the cold Yellowstone morning air. I will convoy with a coworker, sliding by snow-dusted pines and through the mist down the west side of the Grand Loop to Madison and then out through the West Entrance. Perhaps the Rangers have reopened the gates but if not we will open the locked gates with the combination necessitated by a bureaucracy that is far away from its results. There, my friend and I will say goodbye to Yellowstone, for now, as we undoubtedly take pictures of ourselves in front of the newly opened entry booths

I am lucky. My department had enough work left to keep me busy right up to quitting time. I’ve been saying goodbye to other coworkers all last week as the need for their services ended. Because face it, for the past three weeks, we have all been employees of a hospitality company with no guests to which to offer our hospitality.

Even though I am very sorry the shutdown occurred, I also realize just how incredibly lucky I have been to experience Yellowstone in the fall with so very few people and so very many relaxed animals. Once everyone leaves, it is truly evident that Yellowstone belongs to the critters. It has been very quiet here except for the lovelorn bugling of the elk (even though most of the cows have already mated by now) and the occasional grunt of the bison. Once in a while a service truck lumbered down the road but traffic has been rare.

Last Sunday it snowed here at Mammoth, sometimes so thickly I could barely distinguish the outlines of the rail fence around the steam vents in the parade lawn outside my window. The ornamental hardwoods around Mammoth were draped with heavy snow, their branches sagging almost down to the ground. The cone-shaped spruces looked like perfect Christmas trees decorated with brilliantly white tinselly crystals.

Another worker and I walked around in the snow, up to the Terraces where we took pictures from the middle of the empty road. Heck, I even took a picture of the empty road standing on the yellow line.  We walked down to the tiny chapel at the end of Officer’s Row, taking pictures of the snow-covered mountains and the locked gate leading down to Roosevelt and Tower along the East Loop. Everywhere quiet beauty surrounded us.

As we walked behind the Chapel, we heard several bulls bugling and we were caught up in the magic of a snow-laden Wonderland. One big bull, on the hills to the west of the old stone chapel, accompanied by another down in the Campground below the hill and a third down near the Ranger residence area, bugled a song of unrequited love. They sounded lonely, plaintive – pulled by instinct to complete their business with their harems and then leave the easy life on the Mammoth lawns to return to the forest to survive another solitary winter.

I’ve learned a lot about Yellowstone and its natural wonders this summer. I have witnessed the transformation of majestic bull elk to sleep-deprived, sex-starved sultans of hesitant harems. I learned about the old bison bulls, leaving the herd to wander alone through the forest until they become food for other critters. I’ve become somewhat comfortable with the idea of grizzlies in my neighborhood. I’ve begun to learn to fly fish, becoming more aware of the movement of the water and the feeding habits of Yellowstone’s trout species. I’ve watched the miracle of cutthroat struggling upstream to spawn in crystal-clear brooks. I’ve observed osprey take care of their young in their nest high above Lamar River. I now know the different types of thermal features here in the Park and why their prismatic run-offs produce different colors. And yet, I feel I still have so much to learn about this particular patch of the Mother’s Nature.

I’ve also learned a lot about myself, becoming more aware of my personal need to hear the beat of the wilderness on a daily basis. I acknowledge I want to live in an environment where everyone always carries a camera in order to memorialize those nearly daily moments of awe. I am more than ever aware that I thrive in an environment where I am an interloper, an observer to a landscape that does not need my help to survive. That kind of environment challenges me, hones my own survival instincts just as it does the critters of the natural Earth. It also releases me from the responsibility of being ‘in charge’ for truly we humans are not. The task for me is to exist in this environment with as little impact as possible on the ones who really belong here.

I’ve learned that I am at my very core a solitary person, one who needs nature’s quiet sounds to think and pray – the slap of the water on the shore, the wind through the trees, the rustle of the bushes as critters pass by. I’ve learned to do without television, decent wifi, even heat and hot water sometimes. And I’ve learned I don’t miss these things when the environment itself fills my soul and keeps me entertained and thoughtful. I’ve always been in closer touch with Spirit in the wilderness but this summer has taught me I am so much more when Spirit is close to me all the time.

Both Alice and Dorothy were given challenges they had to meet in order to return home. They both returned more resourceful, more open, more courageous young women than they were when they began. For that is the hero’s journey – essentially all of our journeys as we travel through our own lives. I came to Yellowstone presented with the challenges of getting over personal grief and figuring out what part of my 60-year-old life was worth keeping and what I need to let go. My life has to change – the lives of the persons most important to me have changed and so must I if I am to remain vital and happy and energized.

As with most successful employees (and there are many who are not ‘successful’ at living in the fishbowl created by close living), I have been getting constant questions from full-timers and Returners (the name given to those seasonals that come back ‘home’ like boomerangers for another round and then another) - am I going to come back next summer? I’ve been thinking about that a lot.

I have the feeling I’m not done with Yellowstone. There are hikes I wanted to take but couldn’t because of the fires and then because of the shutdown. There are ‘honey holes’, as my fishing mentor Master Wiley calls them, I want to fish. There are sunsets to witness and new interesting characters to meet. Time will tell, though. There are also other Wonderlands like Glacier and Denali. And as nuts as it sounds, I really think I want to live the very isolated existence of at least one winter at Old Faithful sometime in the next few years.

I feel a bit like Dorothy must have felt when she first met the Scarecrow. Which way to Oz? she asked him. Scarecrow told her it depended on what she wanted to do on the way. Oz, for me, can be any wilderness filled with miraculous life forms and fantastical creatures. Dorothy chose the most direct path but Alice wandered somewhat aimlessly through Wonderland. Maybe I’ll do the same or maybe, just maybe, I’ll follow the road directly back to this particular Wonderland, my Muse for the summer.

Regardless, today I start on my last leg of the journey I started last May. I will travel up to Missoula to say goodbye to my son, then on down to Utah where I will stay for awhile in much more luxurious surroundings than those in which I have been living all summer. When I get back to Tucson, I may just sit on my back porch for the better part of the first week, greeting Brother Sun as he makes his way over the ridge to the east of my house and chatting with Sister Moon about what’s been happening while I’ve been gone. I will listen for the song of Friend Phainopepla who lives in the wash below my home and watch for signs of the neighborhood bobcat and javelina.

In the end, after an entire summer in the Wilderness, I’m not any closer to knowing what’s next for me but I remain convinced it will be wonderful and exciting. I’ve decided, gentle readers, I would like to invite you along. Earth is a rather spectacular place and I have only seen a very tiny part of it. So shalom, aloha, but not goodbye. Come along with me as I soak up the sights, sounds and scents of this wonderful world.