These are stressful times. Here we are, living through this pandemic, over 200,000 Americans have died, and others act like everything is fine and it is all overblown. Every day we are bombarded with more bad news about what our government (though I’m not sure we should use the word “our” anymore, since most of the so-called elected officials act on their own behalf and did not receive as many votes as other officials—I’m talking about the fact that the president didn’t win the popular vote, that most Senators represent a smaller amount of people than they should in a democracy), but every day like I said, more bad news. People being killed by police and shot by vigilantes, people dying of a disease running rampant, women getting hysterectomies in prison camps without knowing they would be r why, a president saying he won’t step down and doesn’t think the ballots should be counted, and the GOP just not caring and being fine with it if it means they can stay in power in order to force their will on us all.
So yeah, I’m a little anxious. I did a “yoga for anxiety” video yesterday but it didn’t really take. I suppose I’ll have to try again, but it seems like, I shouldn’t try to just calm down and act like everything is okay. It’s not okay. I run errands feel like every time I enter a store I’m entering a potential hazardous waste area. Louie goes into work and has to constantly worry about getting too close to the students and how long he is in a room with how many. He can’t just heat up his lunch at the kitchen and eat there, he has to go back to his office and eat alone so he can safely remove his mask. It’s all a whole bunch of little things that add up to constant, never ending stress.
So how are you all doing? I said to an adult student last week, “oh, hanging in there,” and she said, oh you know when a midwestern says “hanging in there” they are on the edge!
But let’s see. Not everything is bad. If I pretend that it is totally normal that you wear a mask everywhere, many of your neighbors think fascism is a-okay and that Black lives don’t actually matter, that it’s okay that we are at what, 10 percent unemployment including my sister being at full unemployment, my other sister being somewhat unemployed…that’s just in my immediate family.
Like I said, nothing everything is bad. My new job is fun. It would be even more fun in person, the way it should be, where I teach kids to play the violin where I can see them and hear them NOT over the internet and NOT at their homes where they are sitting at couches and where they have to be muted most of the time and I can’t really see if they are paying attention and I can’t really see if they are totally disengaged and I can’t really hear if they are playing. I can’t imagine doing this all day long, I teach for 30 minutes and I’m just overcome with WHY was this on the back burner for the US? Why didn’t they keep bars and restaurants and such closed, and prioritize opening the schools, and hire even more teachers and really put money towards the education of our children? Oh, because we don’t care. We don’t care about chidren, we don’t care about the poor, we don’t care about anything or anybody except ourselves. We couldn’t pay people to stay home in order to get kids back out into schools so they could learn and be engaged and be outside of their homes. And yet people are saying, open the schools, and maybe we will open the schools, but it would be the way we opened restaurants. We didn’t open bars and restaurants because it was safe. We didn’t see how many people could actually fit into each one and how many cubic feet of air there was and determine what the airflow would be. They just took the fire safety numbers and divided them up and said, okay, go ahead, who cares if you get sick, you’re on your own. And I fear we will do the same with schools (and I know some are open) and that people will say, oh who cares if teachers get sick, they signed up for this, just like apparently they signed up to get shot and to get denigrated by society and get paid very little while working all summer long to prepare for this fall of having no idea what would happen and working all weekends.
That’s where I am. This week has been very hard, mentally. I have gotten used to getting up earlier. I’m enjoying teaching the kids, though I feel like it isn’t real. I’m enjoying learning from some more online seminars I’m doing, and I’m working on some pieces to record for an upcoming concert.
Oh, and Sunday afternoon I’m playing a benefit concert with my band, to benefit the Oregon Food Bank (Michael is from Portland and we wanted to help out people affected by the fires). It’s in person (socially distanced, please) outdoors but we will also livestream it. It is always good to do things to help other people, and I hope you can attend virtually and donate as well.
I’m pretty tired, I guess, for being used to getting up early. I am feeling pretty burned out already, and maybe that’s because not having very much true human interaction other than Louie is a bit difficult. I see people all day long online but it’s all very superfluous and tricks my brain! I also just need a nice weekend to relax but I keep having commitments as always…I suppose you can’t teach old dogs new tricks (I’m the dog in this analogy). But this weekend is mostly free, except for Saturday morning and the benefit concert, so it should be relatively relaxing.
I’m sorry but not sorry to be so cranky and political. I should try to avoid the news I think, but it’s hard to do so. It’s also hard to pretend everything is fine when my life is so different because of COVID and the horrible lack of response by the government (and our governor and his wife have it now…the unelected governor who refuses to even encourage people to wear masks…has COVID. Not shocking in anyway.)
Okay, a few positives: the cats! How cute are they? They are enjoying this open window weather (as I am) and since I’m home all day I can just leave the windows open and let the house air out. The cats enjoy me being here too, though I suspect they take it for granted. I still can’t believe Miles was lost for 11 months!
Okay, let’s continue the trip recaps. When I left off on the last post, I was enjoying an evening sleeping in a bed rather than an air mattress on the ground. The Historic Madison Hotel was very nice. They claim to be the oldest hotel in West Yellowstone that is still operating as a hotel, and we did stay in the historic part (there is a new addition part that is around back and didn’t look like anything special.) Reviews said the hotel was loud, but I slept great!
The hotel gives you a coupon for $10 off breakfast or dinner at the restaurant next door, the Timberline Cafe, which claims to be (it may well be true, I just don’t know!) the oldest restaurant in West Yellowstone operating still operating as a restaurant. West Yellowstone had a mask ordinance inside and required masks, but to eat at a restaurant would mean taking it off, so no. We were able to order takeout, and ate our eggs and potatoes outside on the balcony again.
We checked out of the hotel and then headed for the Wolf and Grizzly Discovery Center. My dad had visited Yellowstone in February (in the before times) and had said it was well worth a visit, so we made plans to stop. It was a sunny day and you could tell it was going to be hot. I couldn’t find my hat, so we popped into a souvenir shop to get a new one. After that, we walked over to the Center.
There was a short line to get in, and mostly people were distancing (it was outdoors). The law was to wear face masks while inside, or standing in line outside of somewhere, but naturally there were some special snowflakes who weren’t and also a few under the nose types. We steered clear as best as we could. I think especially looking back, knowing what the scientific evidence for masks, even cloth masks, now, we definitely felt good about our mask wearing and felt good and continue to feel good about avoiding indoor dining or removing masks inside. Anyway!
This is a cool place. Your ticket could be used for two days but we weren’t planning to return. We poked around the indoor museum very briefly, lots of interesting displays, some taxidermy of course, and then went outside. The Center has wolves and bears that for various reasons, can’t live in the wild so they live there. They had a large area for the bears and would have one or two bears out for public viewing at a time. After 45 minutes or an hour, they would switch out the bears. It was a lot of fun to see the bears lumbering around, and to see the crows hanging around waiting to get their food, very brave crows!
The Center is basically just a very small zoo, so it’s easy to wander around quickly. The wolf pens are opposite the bear area so we could easily go back and forth depending on where the action was. The Center wasn’t too busy and so it was easy enough to distance from other people.
We enjoyed watching the wolves interact with each other. I believe there were three different enclosures for the wolves, one had young wolves and the mom would be allowed in occasionally, and two others with adults. The people who worked there would set out antlers and raw meat and then let the wolves out to discover them. We joked that the wolves would be going crazy wondering how they’d missed the deer that was obviously just there.
I should mention there are also some large birds you can see, some Bald Eagles and other birds, each with their own issue that keeps them from being able to survive in the wild, and an otter area, and a few more things.
After we finished at the Center, it was lunch time! The best place we could tell was the Taco Bus again: outdoor seating, quick and easy, delicious.
After lunch, it was time to head back into the park. Our plan was to go to Bridge Bay Campground first and set up in our new tent site, and then see what to do next. It was probably at least 1 1/2 hours drive to Bridge Bay from West Yellowstone. Along the way we saw a few of these guys in the road, at Hayden Valley.
And then we were right behind them.
After the fun of the Bison Jam, we made it to the Lake and then to our campground. We had camped at Bridge Bay years ago and liked it, so we were hoping to enjoy it as well this time. We did get lucky and were in a tent-only loop, which was up into the woods a bit, though…very hilly. The bathroom was uphill quite a bit, but not far, but our site ended up being on a ridiculous slope. It was probably about 20 yards downhill to our tent, which had to be where it was because there wasn’t anywhere else remotely flat. We did have a tiny view of the lake, but the hilliness of the site was not great. So, the steep downhill to the tent, then the picnic table was on such an incline that I couldn’t even use the stove on it, and then uphill further back up to the bear box, and the fire pit was in a fairly flat area, flat enough to put two chairs on one side but not flat enough to have chairs all around. Basically the site was pretty terrible, but the area of the campground was much nicer and it was more private than Madison, so it seemed like an upgrade. It was supposedly a large tent site and the area we put our small tent in just barely made it, however. Not super pleased, again.
But, whatever. We are in Yellowstone, right, and that’s what mattered! We set up a few things, and then headed back out for some geysers. We had a plan to end up the evening at Grand Prismatic Spring to hopefully avoid the most of the crowds, and there were a few neat stops in between.
We drove to Black Sand Basin, which is near the Old Faithful Area. We bypassed a few stops we would plan to do next. We saw some great springs and geysers and pools there, and then headed to Biscuit Basin. Neither place was very busy at all, which was great. We then wanted to hike up to the overlook of Grand Prismatic, which is a relatively new legal hike. The information I’d read said short hike, which was both true and not true: it led us stupidly to think we didn’t even need to bring water. We did, but we lived, at least.
I highly recommend this hike. You park at the Fairy Falls Trailhead and it’s about 2 miles. It’s not very shaded until the end, and then it’s steep, so do bring water. It was pretty busy for it being so late in the day so I can only imagine how busy it would be earlier. This is a better late in the day hike, because in the morning they say the steam coming off the Spring obscures the colors. It was beautiful to see up there, though seemed quite small, which it isn’t!
That’s my new hat which I bought in the morning.
We enjoyed the view, and then headed back to the car and glugged water.
Next we went to Grand Prismatic up close. We made the mistake of thinking at close to 7 pm that the parking lot would be a good idea. It worked out and we got a spot but we probably would have saved time parking along the road and walking in. This was definitely a good time to see the Spring but it was the most crowded place we had been in Yellowstone!
I recommend doing the order we did as well, because you see the Spring from above and THEN you see it up close. You can’t get a picture of the whole thing because it is unbelievably large, and unbelievably amazing. And along the edges by the boardwalk you’ll see the footprints of bison…and hopefully no people! It’s worth fighting the crowds in ordinary times, and we were glad we made the effort. There were quite a cast of characters around taking pictures as well, people dressed to the nines as if they had just stepped out of a limo or were doing modeling, and people setting up to try to take sunset pictures.
We headed back then, as we figured we had about an hour drive. Amazingly it was a full moon that night, and Louie was thrilled to try to get some pictures over the Lake. I snapped a few with my phone (he uses a fancy DSLR camera and knows much more than I do about photography.)
It was dark by then so we wanted to make an easy dinner. We had the worst dinner ever: we had decided to try some Spaghetti-o type thing but from Trader Joe’s. So I made that, plus a can of lima beans…I enjoy frozen lima beans and had bought some canned ones thinking they would be okay. OMG this was disgusting. It tasted like the “O’s” were in ketchup and the lima beans were just disgusting. Plus I’d been cooking on the stove and the pan kept sliding off because the picnic table was too slanted. It was just awful. We choked it down because we didn’t want to waste it, but trust me: don’t buy either product.
Our site at Bridge Bay. Honestly, if it had been a bit more level it would have been a really lovely site. The trees, there was a good bit of space (of course it was all a steep incline, but you know, space!)…and you could even see the Lake through it.
Anyway, the next morning we had our breakfast and headed to West Thumb Geyser Basin. This is one of my favorite basins because it is right alongside the Lake.
This was the famous “Fishing Cone” but mostly submerged. Back in the old days people would stand on it, fish, catch a fish, and then dip the fish into the cone to cook it! Now that would be totally illegal and ill-advised, and yes, people did get injured, and they also damaged the cone. The Lake water was pretty high though due to heavy snows and such so the cone was mostly submerged.
After getting our fill of the West Thumb Geyser Basin we took a little hike up to Lake Overlook. It leaves across the road from the parking lot and it is just over 2 miles. It was a very nice hike. We kept thinking it would rain on us but it didn’t. You get to the top and there is a nice view of the lake, hence the name.
After that hike we saw a sign for Duck Lake so we did that too, just over a mile. It was nice, but you could see the highway from the Lake so, less exciting, in my opinion.
We ate a bit of lunch and then drove to the DeLacy Trailhead to hike to Shoshone Lake. Shoshone Lake is the largest lake in the 48 states NOT accessible by road, so we wanted to check it out. There are several trails that will take you there, and there’s even a Geyser Basin, but we decided to do the most direct and shortest route, which was 3 miles each way (not much elevation change.)
We enjoyed this hike immensely. We passed only a few people on the way out and there were bugs (that was the biggest downside) but it was very enjoyable.
We got to the lakeside and were amazed by how big it seemed! There were a few other parties out there, and the trail would have continued various directions, but we just stopped to enjoy the lake. One guy was wading out pretty far into the water –evidently it stayed fairly shallow even far out. I didn’t do that, but I did take my shoes and socks off and step into the water…oh it was refreshing and the sand was just rough enough to feel terrific on my sore feet.
Normally while hiking I resist taking off my shoes to get my toes wet because I worry it’ll never be quite right again with my socks on. It was totally fine: smart wool socks combined with a pretty dry air meant I was able to get my feet rinsed off and back into my shoes quite easily.
On our way back another couple wanted to hike with us: I guess they were worried about bears…they never really said but just ended up hiking right behind us and then didn’t want to pass when we offered. We chatted a bit, though we felt at times maybe they were hiking a little bit close. It did make the 3 miles back go quickly.
So what to do next, that was the question! We decided to double back and head towards Bridge Bay again. We got close and then decided to head to Mud Volcano just a couple of miles past it. Mud Volcano is one of my favorite places, because on our first trip we had a wonderful visit there with a bunch of bison! We have never seen them there again, but always hope.
The Park was trying to get people to do things like only go one-way. Most were following these rules, even though technically it was the opposite of the way we would have preferred and there was a place where a one-way meant doubling back.
You can see the sky looks a bit foreboding…we were thinking, nah, it’s looked like that all day, and so we kept looking at the thermal features and taking pictures. Finally it started drizzling, and we could hear thunder and ran for the car!
We ended up driving through a hailstorm! It was very exciting for a short period of time. We got back to our campsite and the rain hadn’t gotten there yet…Louie and I made a quick decision to put up the tarp over our picnic table so we could be out of the rain, and we worked very quickly and got it up just before the rain started! It was wonderful timing. Luckily it was a very brief storm, so we were able to make and enjoy a nice campfire as well.
I don’t remember whether it was this night or the next night when Louie had to go get ice. This was one of the downsides of being in the middle of nowhere and not having phone service because it shows you how much you depend on it. He took the car and I had a guidebook to look at while he was gone, because he wanted to go get ice for the cooler from the front office. Well, he ended up being gone a long time. How long, I’m not sure…because I only had my guidebook. I ended up getting really worried and freaked out and somehow had convinced myself he had been eaten by bears and wouldn’t make it back, and was getting seriously panicked when he finally got back. I was so mad! He explained they didn’t have a functioning ice machine at the office so he had to go to Fishing Bridge which was “only 10 to 15 minutes” so that meant like 30 minutes, and there I am, no phone, no kindle, no nothing! I didn’t even know how much time had passed except that it hadn’t been dark and it was dark by the time he returned. Granted, I shouldn’t have worried so much, but with the pandemic, normal stress levels are high, and stress just goes into panic mode entirely too easily. I just don’t remember if this was the second night at Bridge Bay or the third night (I think the third night, because of the rain, but here we are on the second night and I’m telling you…it’s also very possible we set the tarp up earlier in the day and I’m forgetting about it…either way, when we set it up, it rained immediately after), and it doesn’t matter. It may seem like we are just having fun exploring, but trust me when I say normal was hard to come by and though we had some wonderful moments, we had some really hard moments too, for things that should have been easier.
What’s left? One more night in Bridge Bay, and then a night in Silver Gate, then a night in the Bighorn Mountains further East in Wyoming, and then a night in Nebraska…so lots more to go! One more full day in the park though, and I’ll start with that next blog post: the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.
This is the real “back to school” week, as my new job started this morning. I have to get used to getting up at something like 6 am weekdays, which is early for me! (It’s early for anybody, I think.) I naturally woke up earlier than that because I was stressed. In any case, we had some technical glitches this morning, not due to anything I did, and only half my class showed up but it went well for what we had. Mondays are one of my busiest days with 7 hours of teaching! I have one new college student this week and several returning students, and it should be a fun week.
This past week was kind of crazy: I had three different playing jobs which was so weird! I was actually kind of stressed about it, because I have gotten used to only teaching and not having to worry about what to wear and when to be places other than, in front of my computer. But I did a recording for a church service, played at a retirement community (outside) and then played an orchestra concert, outside, in a park, with Leonard Slatkin! Which was awesome—it was with the Metropolitan Orchestra of St Louis, which is a group I play with quite often. The conductor of MOSL, Wendy Lea, set up a whole program and really went above and beyond. I don’t know if we were safe playing together, but we followed the best practices we could: everybody was on their own stage, spread out six feet or so, we were outdoors, and everybody who could play their instrument wearing a mask did so. The flute players had these weird caps on their flute heads that blocked their breath from going too far.
The audience may or may have been safe, I can’t be concerned about everybody. It looked like maybe only about half were wearing masks, which is concerning, and makes me NOT want to go back to St Charles (that’s where we played, at Frontier Park in St Charles) but they were pretty well distanced from one another. I don’t know if I would agree to do another large event like this one during the pandemic, but getting to play Beethoven’s Symphony no. 7 with Leonard Slatkin was pretty much well worth it!
The masked violinist!
It was really nice to see some colleagues…I hadn’t seen any of those people in six months or longer. It doesn’t feel like we’ve been doing this isolation thing for so long, yet it feels like forever, doesn’t it?
Other weekend happenings: baking zucchini muffins with the last of the garden zucchini! I made a recipe that made over three dozen muffins, but since I only have two muffin pans, rather than do in two batches I decided to make 24 muffins and a small loaf with the rest. I added some coconut and chocolate chips to the recipe because I had them on hand and wanted to use up the chips.
I think the next time I’m baking quick bread it’ll be pumpkin time! I can’t believe it’s almost fall and we are still in this pandemic with no end in sight. I read an opinion article recently talking about how we are in the risk mitigation part of the pandemic: we can’t stay at home all the time and avoid risk completely, but we have to make decisions about what to do and how to live our lives in the least risky way possible. Louie is off to the classroom today, but he is hopeful that the safety protocols the University has implemented will work for him (I think if he and those in the classroom follow the rules they will work).
Miles joined this little stuffed cat for a catnap in the kitten hammock. He barely fits but he makes it work.
I was excited to see two of the reviews of sheet music that I had written in the past year were in this month’s American String Teacher Journal.
We moved this green chair to make room for something else and Muriel immediately started sitting on it. She loves when furniture is in a different place.
I have done some serious meal planning this week, hoping to stay on top of things. We don’t have the option of running out for a quick meal out after a long day (whether or not we technically do, my risk assessment says no) so that means lots of cooking. I prefer to cook dinner after work and then have leftovers for lunches, so that means we often eat late, but it’s been working well. I have thought about cooking and doing dinner leftovers but it’s just not as fun. Louie and I tend to do our best chatting about the day while cooking so it is a good bonding experience as well.
I’m reading two books right now, switching back and forth between them. The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson, and The Broken Heart of America by Walter Johnson. Both are good reads but heavy.
When you visit Yellowstone during a pandemic, you try to avoid the busiest parts at the busiest times. Louie and I decided that we were visiting, rather than the best of Yellowstone, either the worst or the least of Yellowstone. And we still loved it! Sometimes you think of Old Faithful and Grand Prismatic, but there are so many other magical and beautiful places to go.
I was checking my notes now and I had thought my previous blog post finished up our time at Madison, but NO we still have the Bunsen Peak day to go!
We had decided for our last full day in the Madison area that we wanted to hike up Bunsen Peak and perhaps also to Osprey Falls after that. Well, Louie definitely wanted to add on Osprey Falls but I wasn’t sure, so we decided maybe we’d split up at that point. Bunsen Peak was back north along the Grand Loop Road where we had driven quite a bit the past few days, so it was in familiar territory.
We got to the trailhead easily, but then realized there weren’t any bathrooms nearby and needed to double back to find one. I was worried we’d lose our parking spot but nature was calling! We visited the Sheepeater Picnic area (note to readers, picnic areas always have vault toilets, which aren’t great but ARE useful at times) and one of the most delightful things was that several marmots were out playing around. Another delightful thing was that the toilets had just been cleaned.
I don’t have a zoom lens like Louie does—these were just from my phone. So the picture isn’t that clear, but trust me, marmots are really cute. Don’t get close to them and feed them please, don’t do that with any wild animals.
We headed back to Bunsen (about ten minutes?) and found parking again easily (unlike some National Parks, Yellowstone doesn’t get really crowded until after 10 am, maybe even 11, because it is just so big). And we headed up the trail. It was only about 2. 2 miles up to the top of Bunsen Peak, and you could just go back down, but you can also continue down the back way, and then to Osprey Falls. So we got to the top probably in just over an hour, I can’t remember. Maybe slightly longer. It was fairly scenic on the way up with particularly nice views of the Mammoth area from way up high. The trail was partly shaded, which was nice because it was quite sunny. We got passed by a few people but it wasn’t too crowded at all.
The white part you see towards the middle of the photograph is, I believe, part of Mammoth Hot Springs.
As it seems with many mountains in Yellowstone, there was a radio tower on top of Bunsen Peak as well, along with a little building. You had to walk up though, you couldn’t drive up like Mount Washburn.
At the top we did the usual, reapplied bug spray and sun screen, ate lunch, took pictures, checked email (yes, actually, because you get service up at the top of mountains, ha!)…
Another couple offered to take our picture and I was a bit hesitant, but we wiped down the phone after. Look at that view!
After we spent some time at the top, it was time to head on. The back side of Bunsen wasn’t as well traveled, but still seemed to see plenty of action. There were parts that had obviously burned at some point in the not-so-distant past.
Going up is always tough for me, but going down has its own challenges. I decided I wasn’t going to continue to Osprey Falls because of the elevation change that would be required (it was only about 3 more miles but down and up about 950 feet which I just wasn’t feeling). Louie and I decided to split up at a point when there was a turn. The route back was about 3 very flat miles, so I could easily walk that alone, except for the bear worries.
We got the turnoff and ended up seeing another couple. I asked them if I could tag along on their return trip and they readily agreed, so I didn’t have to walk alone. Louie headed off on his own (the couple were affiliated with the park, naturalists, and they didn’t think he should worry too much about doing that part of the trail alone) and I walked back with them. We stayed a bit apart but chatted: they lived in Gardiner and she worked as a naturalist and he was an engineer working online who also loved taking pictures of birds. They had been out birding on their hike, trying to get good pictures of an Osprey nest.
This part of the hike was doubletrack, an old road of sorts I suppose. People can bike on it as well.
It was nice chatting with people who weren’t Louie (no offense to Louie, simply that we had been spending all of our time together for days and weeks!) and the last miles flew by.
I got back to the car and made myself comfortable to wait for Louie. I read and drank cold water for another 1 1/2 to 2 hours until he got back. He said he really enjoyed the hike and the falls were beautiful, so I’m glad we did our plan.
What next, we thought? Well, we had gone north so many times…it was time to head south and visit some geysers. The south part of the part is where most of the geyser activity is, and as a result, most of the traffic. But it was nearly 4 pm when we got far enough south, and our first stop was Firehole Canyon Drive.
We did a quick stop at Fountain Flat Drive, where there is a picnic area and supposedly loads of wildlife at certain times of day. It was quite hot still so nobody was around, but we enjoyed this small hot spring. It was really neat because well…it was just this one tiny spring on the side of a perfectly normal looking river.
Then we visited the Fountain Paint Pots, which were fantastic. It must have been pushing 5 pm by then and the traffic was really clearing out. We got prime parking in the lot, and though the boardwalks weren’t empty, they weren’t bad, and we wore masks.
(In case you are unfamiliar with Yellowstone’s boardwalks, there are pretty much boardwalks everywhere you are walking over hot spring or geyser areas. It is great to see all the features from a safer setting.)
Then we hit up Firehole Lake Drive and saw more amazing hot springs and thermal features. Geysers erupt occasionally, hot springs are hot, paint pots bubble, there are all of these different technical terms, but the gist is: they are amazing with all the various colors and textures and smells.
Firehole Lake Drive is fun because you drive and park and drive and park and get out a bunch, and we kept running into the same people at each stop. I imagine during busier times of day the parking might be more difficult, but it was after 6 pm and for Yellowstone, that’s the end of the day and so many people have left.
We didn’t catch any eruptions really, but we weren’t worried about that. Maybe another time, when we feel like just sitting and waiting, but Louie and I aren’t that into geysers so much as just seeing all the different weird pools and run offs.
Anyway, after that we decided to head back to have dinner and relax.
It was our last night at Madison Campground, and we weren’t too sad about it either. You can see how crowded things were, and it had been some time since we had had showers.
We decided to visit the Old Faithful area early in the morning. We got up very early the next day and headed over—it was probably only about 20-30 minutes drive.
We definitely beat the crowds. It was around 7 am when we got there and hardly anybody was around. We wandered the boardwalks looking at the dozens and dozens and dozens of geysers in the area. I believe one could spend all day just at this one stop, but we never do! We had seen Old Faithful erupt on a previous visit so that wasn’t our goal this time.
Grotto Geyser above
Hmm, this might have been Castle Geyser?
A sign for the times, for sure!
We were lucky enough to catch Daisy Geyser erupt but we were a little bit away and I didn’t take any good pictures. Next we made a quick stop back to Fountain Flats Drive and did a short hike to Ojo Caliente, probably about 1/2 mile each way. And then we went to pack up our tent and go to West Yellowstone.
We are kind of experts at tent camping now (haha) and got packed up quickly. It was about a 20-30 minute drive to the West Entrance of the park and West Yellowstone, and I wanted to do laundry before we did anything else, so we found a laundromat first. We decided to eat lunch while we were doing laundry so we got takeout from a nearby place called Ernie’s. It wasn’t crowded but the people in the kitchen weren’t wearing masks we could see, but we decided to risk it anyway as it was right within walking distance of where we were and we didn’t want to try to find something else. Sigh. I enjoyed a nice salmon sandwich, if I recall, with potato chips and a Diet Coke.
After lunch and laundry (it’s always nice to start fresh again with clothes on a long trip!) we headed a bit north to visit the Earthquake Lake area. I’d read it was an interesting place to visit to learn about the Hebgen Lake Earthquake from 1959 where 28 people from a campground died. I didn’t realize there was a whole driving tour with various stops, so we started making the stops and had a nice afternoon learning all about the earthquake. The scenery was beautiful, the stops were interesting, and the story is just tragic and awful. To me, it always seemed particularly terrible to die while on a vacation, and there were just some awful stories from the survivors. And here we are, on vacation during a pandemic…I found it all very emotional and difficult but I’m really glad we made the stops.
The trees are where the lake took over: there wasn’t a lake there before the earthquake.
We took a slightly different route back to West Yellowstone after finishing the tour (it ends at the Visitor’s Center about 30 miles from West Yellowstone) and I didn’t realize we would go into Idaho! This was exciting for me because I didn’t think I had been to Idaho before, so we made sure to stop and get out of the car briefly.
Then we headed to our hotel for the night in West Yellowstone. I’d reserved a historic room at the Historic Old Madison Hotel. The downside was that our room only had a tub, but the upside was that there were showers in the hall one could use. That was our first stop the showers!
After we got ourselves presentable, we went to walk around town and get dinner. We had dinner from the Taco Bus, a place where you go into a bus to order your food…it’s sort of a Taco Truck but a little different. We sat at a picnic table outside to eat. Then we had ice cream after dinner, and then hung out on the lovely balcony upstairs at our hotel and enjoyed watching the traffic go by and the nice air.
There was another woman outside as well, and she was friendly enough, but we overheard her on the phone with a friend complaining that the hotel didn’t even have TV and that she didn’t like Yellowstone as much as the Black Hills because all they did was sit and wait for Old Faithful to erupt and it was super boring.
I think that’s a good place to leave you for today! Looking ahead: wolves and bears and more hot springs!
This has been a far less busy fall than usual, but I’ve managed to fill my days enough that writing blog posts has fallen by the wayside. Partly because I don’t actually think anyone is reading, but if you are, I am going to write more about Yellowstone soon, I promise.
I can’t believe we’ve been back a month! So much has happened, yet so little. I applied for, interviewed for, and accepted a new teaching position. It’s just in addition to my other positions but in the early morning. And it’s online for now, so it doesn’t seem terribly real, but it pays decently, I’m excited (it starts next week) and I figured in today’s world it wasn’t a good idea to turn down jobs because they are too early (7:15 am). It’s a before school strings position.
I have often said I don’t love teaching groups, but I haven’t tried it in awhile so I have probably grown enough to be fine with it. I have taken the attitude towards my career that when things fall into my lap I should take advantage of them, and it has mostly worked out well. Worse case I end up being entirely too busy and have to quit something at the end of the school year, but since performing isn’t really on the table, and I’m not even sure I want to return to the level of performing I was doing before, taking on more teaching makes sense.
The more I think about it, the more I realize I don’t actually miss performing that much. I do miss the warm feeling afterwards, but I don’t miss the stress before, worries about getting places (even a wedding can be quite stressful, would you believe) and being in the right place at the right time. Rarely was I able to perform with people where I felt I was having a transcendental musical experience….my true performing love is playing with a full orchestra, and since I’ve only done that about three times in the last 10 years, I have already said good-bye to it and made my peace (mostly) with not having orchestra in my life anymore. (The wash of sound around you and the feeling of contributing to something so much bigger than you are, in addition to the amazing repertoire.) So leaving more performing wouldn’t be a big deal at all. I attempted to fill the orchestra void with chamber music, since so many others seem to love that more, but my experiences have never been the same as those people. I do enjoy playing in the pit because it’s a fun time (and the stress of actually performing is a bit lower, with the camaraderie bumped up) and will continue to play Broadway shows when I am able and when they come back, but I’m just not sure about the rest.
I have been working on my teaching, as I’ve mentioned, and been really going over everything and reevaluating my methods. I’ve also been taking a lot of online workshops and getting even more ideas. My teaching lately has never been so good (I hope my students are appreciating it, honestly!). Just last night I participated in a wonderful seminar about tension release and the teacher leading it was so wonderful and creative. I have also been learning more about improvising and teaching improvisation and am planning to do a twice monthly online class for my students (and others) starting in October, so yesterday I spent an hour working on those ideas.
It’s a lot to do, actually, even if I just feel like I’ve sitting around. I’ve also been practicing viola to make a recording to do a little bit of online Suzuki teacher training on viola. I don’t have any formal viola training at all, and though occasionally I think of trying to take some lessons I’m not sure with whom (perhaps my sister Carrie, online!) and I also figure I would be better off at the time simply attempting to practice the instrument more and figure things out by practicing. Unlike the kids, I know that learning an instrument isn’t a magical experience and it really does take hard work.
So there’s my brain dump. I do feel like I mostly just think about teaching. We also have had a few socially distanced gatherings with a few friends here and there, and my sister Leslie and her family stopped by for less than 48 hours while they were driving cross country back home to Phoenix from their summer employment home. (Unemployment in this case, since they are musicians, but that’s another story).
I made an excellent zucchini cake with zucchini from the garden. I made black bean burgers, baba ganoush. pasta salad, roasted eggplant and pickled beet sandwiches, and potato salad. I have become a much better cook during the pandemic though I still mostly follow recipes. I was talking with someone the other day who was saying they get blue apron but don’t really follow the recipes, they just cook using the ingredients. Which seemed weird to me, because while it IS nice having the precise amount of ingredient to use, it is the precise amount for the recipe on the card, so why not follow it? Sure, use your best judgment on how long things should take if the numbers don’t work out, but it makes more sense to attempt to make the actual dish, otherwise you might not have the right amount of ingredients, which defeats the whole purpose.
Books: I never write about what books I’ve read, but I recently have been working hard trying to catch up on my kindle. Lately I’ve read “How to Be an Antiracist” by Ibram X. Kendi, “Hood Feminism” by Mikki Kendall, “The Night Watchman” by Louise Erdrich, “Stony the Road” by Henry Louis Gates, Jr, and a decent amount of books from the cozy mystery genre that I will list only if somebody asks me to. (Email me or comment below for recommendations, I guess!).
Okay, it’s time for me to get going. Work out next, then get cleaned up and do some teaching.
I am finally ready to write about the next few days of our trip. We are back home and work is crazy…I’ve been teaching about 22 hours a week and adding more. I’m also taking advantage of a variety of online seminars and workshops to improve and inspire my teaching (since, that’s all there is here. Hopefully someday there will be live performances again but it should be known that the live music and live theater business is currently dead and numerous family members and friends are completely out of work and scrambling to make ends meet.)
So, part 1 here. We drove from St Louis to Yellowstone National Park. I was not under the impression that Yellowstone would be less busy than in normal years, because I knew that visitation was slightly UP but I also knew there wouldn’t be large tour buses of tourists and I knew that it was easy to avoid people if you avoided certain areas at certain times…plus the park is outdoors.
We spent the night camping at Buffalo Bill State Park (normally in my head I substitute “bison” for “buffalo” but don’t do that in this case.) We left and headed west to Yellowstone National Park, only about 1 hour away.
The trick to a park like Yellowstone is to be eager to stop and get out of the car. Along the drive there are numerous small pull offs and each one is there for a reason. It’s easy to want to just sit in the car, but if you get out and look at the sign and admire the scenery (or take pictures) you’ll really get a lot more enjoyment out of it.
Before officially entering the park we had to stop for a bathroom break (have I mentioned how often I have to stop? I never think of it until I can’t just go, like on road trips…also it’s important to hydrate when at high altitudes, which Yellowstone is.)
Our general plan for this first day was to get to our campsite at Madison Campground by late afternoon. We were entering the park at about 11 am, and decided we would do a short hike at Storm Point on our way. This was a hike we’d done the previous year, but it was both easy and really beautiful so we thought it would be a nice “stretch your legs” hike. It was! Even though we made a few mistakes at the beginning…we decided to do the loop hike the opposite direction from the previous year, but we didn’t realize maybe the hike had been slightly rerouted due to a creek crossing and the reverse direction we took wasn’t actually the official trail and we had to do a little bushwhacking to find our way(this is a bit of foreshadowing….this turned out to be an error we made again later). Not very smart! It was also a bit buggy, which wasn’t my favorite, but hey, still better than Missouri, right? The views at the farthest point of the trail, Storm Point, are really gorgeous. You can see Lake Yellowstone and all of the mountains around. We also got to walk down to a little beach by the Lake, which led to Louie asking my favorite question of the vacation: while gesturing at a medium-sized group of ducks he asked, “why are there ducks here?”.
You can see some “thermal features” along the water there. You might think that all of the geysers and such are well labeled and in popular areas such as Old Faithful, but there are thermal features all over, and I love being on a hike, hearing something gurgling and saying “aha, a thermal feature!” Or seeing some “evidence of thermal activity”, another favorite.
This was the little beach area where Louie questioned the existence of the ducks.
We ate our picnic lunch along the way as well, but I think we didn’t enjoy this hike as well as last year because there were a lot of people on it. Normally that wouldn’t bother me, because a lot for a Yellowstone hike means maybe you see 20 to 30 people, but in these COVID times that seems like a lot!
We headed on our way then, just stopping at little things along the way to Madison Campground.
This was Beryl Springs, which is one of the hottest springs in the park. It’s a little pull off, but you see the steam before you park.
We checked into Madison Campground, our home for the next four nights. We hadn’t stayed here before. I had reserved a small tent site, and let me tell you, emphasis on small. Normally I have poo-pooed people who complain about National Park Campgrounds being jammed in too close together. That was my mistake. This site was outrageous. We were basically next to neighbors on both sides, just crammed in the middle of two campsites, with no sense of privacy (not even the pretend privacy of a campground). This was, other than the location being in Yellowstone, possibly the worst campsite I have ever had. For the record (again, the record), you don’t get to pick your campsite at Yellowstone. I’m not sure how they are assigned, but I definitely got unlucky. I have been lucky many times in the past though so I guess it evens out.
In any case, as we pulled up to our site, it started raining. We thought, let’s get the tent down before the ground gets wet. Which in theory might work, and we did it, we put the tent up in record time, but then it started pouring rain, even tiny hail, and it was a horrible storm and of course the ground was wet anyway. That always makes dinner difficult, so we though, hey we are only 30 minutes from West Yellowstone, let’s go there. So we did, but in these COVID times, you can’t just go get food. It was cold, rainy, and nothing appealed and it all just seemed too difficult. The only drive-through, McDonalds, was backed up a block down the street, so we decided to go back to the campground and eat in the car. We drank beers in the car (we decided with the keys out of the ignition there was no one who could argue we were intending to drive) and had hummus and pita chips.
The next morning we got up early. Luckily the rain had stopped by the time we went to sleep so it wasn’t too wet around…it was time to hit the trails and the Grand Loop Road again. We decided to start “easy” with a short hike up to Monument Geyser Basin—2 miles RT which seems easy, but it was very steep! I was definitely feeling the altitude and huffing and puffing but at least it wasn’t too long. The hike was lovely, with conifers all around and lots of rocks. Monument Geyser Basin has some dormant geysers but lots of huffing and puffing from them, with cone geysers, some mudpots and plenty of gurgling and steam. All in a private setting, no boardwalks or fences, just a few branches blocking off where is likely safe to walk and common sense (that you don’t get close to geysers because the ground around them can be very thin).
We enjoyed a little snack while watching the action. We probably only saw about 3 or 4 other small groups of hikers on this hike.
The hike DOWN was much easier, and soon we were back at the car. We decided to continue heading north and just do stops along the way, so that’s what we did. I have a book called “Yellowstone Treasures” by Janet Chappelle which tells you every pull off and what there is there, so that was quite useful on this trip.
Chocolate Pots—unmarked pulloff with some cool brown thermal features.
Frying Pan Spring. This has a boardwalk to it. I was entertained by passing a woman holding a large bag of Bugles for her trip to the Spring. To be clear: these springs tend to stink, and aren’t the sort of thing you want to snack while watching, but to each their own.
This was the kiosk at the pulloff for Obsidian Cliffs, which is the oldest of its kind in the park. It was built in the National Park Service Rustic style, also called “Parkitecture.”
We decided to go all the way to Mammoth Hot Springs and do another hike there, the Beaver Ponds Hike. It was busy when we got there around 2:30, but we found parking eventually (just be willing to walk more!). We masked up and headed for our trail head. The hike was a 5 mile loop and had some elevation at the beginning but wasn’t too bad throughout, according to the information I had.
The view of Mammoth Hot Springs as we were going by.
We climbed a bit and ran into a couple of teenagers coming back towards us asking about the trail…they had lost it further up and wondered if we knew. We did not, but said we thought we were on the right trail and that was that. A bit later we saw what we thought they might have done wrong (there was a turnout one way to an overlook, the other way to continue the trail) but weren’t sure how they could have missed it. In any case we followed along, enjoying the hike, and even saw a few coyotes (I think?) at one point (which we realized were hunting a marmot…which yes, it’s the circle of life but I don’t enjoy watching animals try to kill other animals.)
If you look closely you can see the coyote. Louie probably has better pictures from his DSLR.
We got to the Beaver Ponds (two of them, I think? ) and kind of followed around.
Suddenly we found ourselves on a trail that seemed less traveled and started to worry we had taken a wrong turn. It didn’t seem super wrong, just a little wrong, so we kept going, and found ourselves going up this steep trail on the side of the trail that was just covered with animal poop (elk, likely) and that’s when we thought, this doesn’t seem right. I had a picture of the map and we looked at it, but it didn’t help. I started panicking. I think I may have started saying, oh my god we are lost in Yellowstone and we are going to die out here and nobody knows where we are and was really starting to have a panic attack. We should have turned around, but we thought we could find the trail. I thought I didn’t even have a topographic map and it was just frankly, really terrifying. I knew if we headed east we would eventually hit the Old Gardiner Road but I didn’t know how far that would be nor if it would be easy to get to, but that was all I could think…
Louie stayed calm and tried to get me calm, and we were on a sort of trail, because there were footprints here and there, but we just couldn’t get going the right way. Finally he got some cell services and could see our location on the maps, and he was able to see where the trail was compared to where we were! Unfortunately, it was up a very steep hill, which had a variety of ways up but they all seemed to be absolutely terrifying (to me) paths made by the elk. I kept having to stop and was really on the verge of absolutely full on panic, but after some harrowing minutes (maybe even an hour, I don’t even know, I couldn’t think straight) we made it up this horrible hill and over the ridge and then finally back on the trail.
Here’s the thing you should know: before the trip I downloaded two apps on my phone, and both had the complete trail system of the park on them, one with the trails marked, one with topographical maps. Both of them show your location in real time on the map, and neither require cell service, only GPS. But in my panic, I didn’t think of trying them out. I also didn’t think of using the GyPSy app we had been using, which ALSO knows our location, and incidentally, has trail maps on it. So I had my phone, with nearly full service, but didn’t have the calm mind to use it to try to help ourselves. Louie did want to sit down and just regroup but I just couldn’t do it.
I will tell you, I was never so happy to be back on a trail. I don’t know why I got so absolutely panicked but it turned out okay and I definitely overreacted. I think it was because the pandemic has just left me so constantly stressed that I didn’t have anything left.
We were both incredibly happy when the town and the Hot Springs were in view!
We passed by (carefully) some elk in town (this is super normal, it is weird if you DON’T see elk in the town of Mammoth. And then decided to take a look at the Upper Loop Drive. There was a place where normally you can drive through but for some reason was closed to cars, so we decided to walk it instead. After that we visited Canary Spring, one of our favorites from the previous year (we stayed a night in Mammoth). It’s an amazing spring going down over the terraces. We did notice some parts that had been active the previous year weren’t this year, but I can’t believe that apparently now Canary Spring has gone dormant! Although I think it was a bit drier from my pictures, it was still really amazing. (They say the only constant in Yellowstone is change, and that one spring will go dormant but another will start up again).
Finally we decided we’d better head back to the campground to make dinner. It took over an hour to drive back—we saw a few more elk along the way but nothing too crazy. We made a fire and made dinner and hung out a bit before going to “bed.” Oh, and I think it HAD rained/stormed at the campground but luckily we had a rain free day—the clouds looked menacing on our Mammoth hike but luckily it held off: we had enough challenges there already!
The next day we headed north from the campground again, and just figured we’d make a lot of stops as well and do a hike or two later in the day further along. First we made a quick stop at Terrace Springs and enjoyed being among the first there.
Our next stop was Gibbon Falls. It was a very busy parking area especially for the early hour so we kept our distance.
We did manage to get a selfie with the falls.
Then we decided to hit Artists Paint Pots. It was already a fairly crowded area but we got a space. It wasn’t too crowded other than the parking lot (which is quite small.)
There are a ton of thermal features here and a gorgeous mountain range for the backdrop.
We visited Sheepeater Cliffs (we almost didn’t do this because it seemed to just be a picnic area, but it was awesome.)
We drove past Mammoth then, and decided to leave the park to go into the town of Gardiner to check email and such. (Also Louie hoped to see Elk in the river along the way.) It was very exciting to get LTE service in town (which is only 5 miles from Mammoth).
Terrible picture, but the lions outside of the Post Office are wearing masks, you can see.
Elk near the Roosevelt Arch, which is at the North Entrance.
We got a fruit smoothie in Gardiner at a sort of food truck and walked around a bit. Then we headed back to the park, and on the drive back in we did see a bunch of elk down near the river—it was a hot day and there were dozens of them enjoying the water. I wondered if some of the trails we were accidentally or on purpose following during our hike the day before would have led us to the river?
We watched for awhile and then headed on.
We drove the Blacktail Plateau Drive which was pretty but had no wildlife sightings other than a strange bird. I think it was too hot for the animals, but we figured we’d try it anyway.
We had decided to do the Lost Lake/Petrified Forest Loop Hike. I’d thought we could start from Roosevelt, but it really was closed (COVID) so we started the Petrified Forest instead. This was a 3 mile round trip hike with some elevation. What I didn’t realized was the second half was mostly uphill and ALL in the sun, so it was less pleasant. I also should have had my hiking sticks in places, because I got a bit scared and cranky. The first part of the hike was lovely, by a beautiful lake, down through a wooded forest, into the Roosevelt area, full of cabins, and not much else.
(The lake wasn’t lost at all, very easy to find!)
A few people were around working, and we asked directions to get to the other side of the hike. The area seemed a bit post-apocalyptic with all the buildings being completely abandoned. The next part of the hike was not my favorite and was lots of climbing with not much shade, and it was the heat of the day. I don’t remember Yellowstone being so hot, but this visit it was!
Anyway, we did check a few times to make sure we were still on the trail, using my excellent maps with my GPS, and it was uneventful in that way.
After the hike we had time to visit Lamar Valley briefly and see the bison. There are just hundreds of them, and I always enjoy seeing them.
We thought we might have a 2 1/2 hour drive back home (I think it ended up being about 2) so we had to leave before too long. We did get in a nice bison jam, and at one point a bison was walking down the road right in front of us. We’d heard they can travel up to 35 mph, but this guy was just going about 3 mph…finally he got over into the other lane and Louie though it was safe enough to pass. He wasn’t actually sure about it, and it is a little nerve wracking driving by the bison but the fellow didn’t seem to mind us slowing driving by.
We made very few stops on the way back, but did stop at Apollinaris Spring. It was a place that you used to be able to drink the spring water and had this amazing stone work around it. Now it’s all overgrown, but it was beautiful in a haunting way. Yellowstone has natural beauty, and also quite a long history (and before it became a park too, you’ll read things about Native Americans living on this land long before, but then you’ll also read about how “nobody lived here” which is…GRRRR.)
Don’t mind Louie being on the edge of my photo.
It was just off the road, not well marked, and we initially didn’t stop because we didn’t see anything there. Another random Yellowstone find that we really enjoyed (and NOBODY was there except us and the mosquitoes).
Then it was dinner time, and campfire time. The good thing about having squeezed into our tiny spot was that it was easy to bring things from the car to the picnic table. And luckily, each night the people right by us were perfectly nice and not too loud (other than one night when were near a snorer, who I was convinced was a bison briefly).
I’ll stop there and you can wait a few weeks (maybe not that long!) for the next installment of our trip! One more night in the Madison area, then a night in West Yellowstone, and then over to Bridge Bay campground. Check out the map of Yellowstone to get a sense.
