There’s no hope of really capturing our Yellowstone experience in photos. Kristen did a better job of photography than I ever could and that’s BEFORE you get into the emotional highs and lows. I drove about a hundred miles back and forth around the part as we explored and sampled and ate and wandered. I had negative thoughts about humanity and tried to push it back out of my skull, enjoying the immense sights of the things around me.
We actually DID manage to get a webcast out, though not Live – and Heather was unable to join us as she spent almost the entire visit sick in our “lodge” – a word really not suited to the cut-rate hotel environs of Grant Village – but it meant Kristen and I got to wander on our own and it was probably good to get some distance.
I think I’ve mentioned how a cloud-based Journal has definitely discouraged uploading road Journal entries, which sucks. So, I’m reconstructing from photos and notes and memories, but mostly writing in post… currently sitting in traffic on I-70 on Fridays October 3rd… nearly 3 weeks “after” this entry. It provides strange context.
Before leaving for this month’s End America tour, Juels Bland frequently put it in terms of “going to see things [like Yellowstone National Park] while its still there”. Being here, knowing how vast it is, its clearly not being existentially threatened by the trump ascendancy, but within days of this visit we’ll see places they are similarly majestic, but that have not been similarly protected. And America moves.in, bulldozer, commodifies and sells off as much as it can, homogenizing it for mass consumption. It won’t happen in the next couple of years, or even decades, but I could imagine it all eroding, being polluted. Privilege sold for hunting and mining and logging and access…
And by the date of my writing this, in the midst of a government shutdown, the already understaffed national park service is once again being dialed back. Those who’ve survived the DOGE culls now simply being furloughed and threatened further.
There IS a feeling that we got in and out in the nick of time. All the bathrooms are now locked up.
S h u d d e r.
Day two: By now Heather’s absolutely sick and isn’t getting out of bed. Kristen and I are on our own and OFF. First task: record a video for Rowan to webcast as part of tonight’s Lair! Kristen had a good idea to film on the lake, and then I built on it and pushed us a little further down the beach. I wanted to get a spot that got more woods AND lake and then foolishly got an angle that got mostly sky and crotch. But… it turned out okay!
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