A Visit from Home
There’s been a long hiatus in my writing. I had a stinking cold for about a month, couldn’t shake it off, and it was compounded by the smoke in the air; it taxed my ability to stay awake, before work on my late days and after work on my early ones. So here I am back.
I had a lovely visit from Maggie during the first week of August. I found that I was trying to cram into plans for the week all of the things I love about this place-that is, the bigger place, not just Yellowstone, but the feel of these mountains, the look of the sky and the air, the sense of the water so different from the ocean that’s been a part of my life so long. I had her visit programmed to the minute, and had to tell her, on her arrival, to call off the dogs when I was getting carried away with the itinerary.
She arrived at the hotel while I was still at work. When my shift ended, we repaired to Storm Point, one of my favorite short hikes in the area. And we drove there in Ruby, her wonderful enchanted convertible that appeared at the end of Neil Coffey’s magic wand. Top down, cruising through Yellowstone–what could be better!
And what a pleasure to take my oldest (in length of friendship, not age) friend to one of my favorite places. She got it immediately, was, I think, pretty taken with the serenity, the beauty, and the scale of these landscapes that puts precisely into perspective how important we are in this universe. We took advantage of passersby on the trail to document a moment in the lives of two Rhode Islanders on the lam.
We drove to Cody, spending the night at a pretty desolate KOA Kampground in a Kabin, I just love the alliteration! And, much to my delight, Maggie got herself some cowboy boots, a harbinger of a return trip. Couldn’t get her on a horse…yet, but she’s ready with the boots. We spent the next day driving up the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway, one of the most beautiful drives I’ve discovered out here, with stunning vistas across valleys thousands of feet below, views of summer range cabins tucked into little valleys high in the mountains, little tarns surrounded by rocks and pines. We came into the northeast corner of Yellowstone, and I treated Maggie to the amusement of watching me try to fish at Trout Lake. Trout Lake was once a hatchery for the Park Service, and contains an interesting hybrid they call a cutbow informally_ a crossing of native cutthroat and rainbow trout. Of course, the only evidence of them I saw was a ring from one surfacing a distance from us. I’m sure if I ever hook a fish, I’ll be so overwhelmed that I’ll simply toss the rod away. But I love the process, and am trying to find the rhythm of the cast (so far I’m not even close!)
We spent a night in one of the little “Roughrider” cabins at Roosevelt Lodge. The Lodge is, to my taste, way more inviting than the somewhat grand but soulless Lake Yellowstone Hotel. The lodge is intimate, rustic and warm. The cabin was tiny, and heated with a little wood stove. We headed out for the Old West Cookout: a trip by wagon to Pleasant Valley, which housed a hotel back in the old days, as a stopover for folks who’d gotten of the train in Gardiner and were headed to the mines near Cooke City. The hotel burned nearly a century ago, and two pavilions, one for cooking, and one for eating were our home for the evening. It rained - that seems to be the weather each and every time I’ve been out there– but that scarcely dampened our ethusiasm for a good evening, with entertainment by Cowboy Bob, until it looked as if he could get electrocuted by his mic! Bubba had to hang out in the camper while we had a night out, poor boy! But he loved some new blood, and was well behaved during Maggie’s entire visit.
We spent a lazy Saturday afternoon on the Yellowstone, on a three hour float trip, joined by Andra Spurr and her friend, Mary. Just enough thrills in the rapids for a bunch of middle-aged ladies. Andra unfortunately became ill, but Maggie and I spent a night in her cottage, and I drove Maggie past my new winter home. We headed down the Gallatin Valley, and returned to Yellowstone, for the mandatory trip to Old Faithful. We hiked up to Observation Point and watched the geyser erupt with a handful of families, as opposed to sitting on the boardwalk around Old Faithful with 3000 of our new best friends. The power and majesty of these geysers is undermined when you’re sitting in the throng; our vantage point really emphasized the power of the scene.
Another night at my campsite, followed by a trip to Jackson, where I sent Maggie off to pick up her daughter, Kate, at the airport in Salt Lake for some more western touring and their trip back to Little Rhody. It was wonderful having my best friend here, and wonderful to enjoy that friendship, but it has made the following weeks a little hard. Much as I love this place, I really miss the being a part of a community, having those friendshis that touch our hearts and connect with us so powerfully. I’m not done with my western adventure by any means, and may never be, but need to feel connected to the place I live, not merely in that sense of a connection with place that touches my heart so profoundly here, but also, and even more so, with people who are, or will become, important to my life.
