July 28-31: 3 days in Yellowstone and Cody, WY

 Yellowstone is out of this world. 

My dad told me a story last week. He said that, when he was in his 20s, he drove with a friend through the U.S. West. Both of them were relocating to Oregon and neither had seen the region. He said that, when his partner began grasping the sheer volume of natural beauty here, she literally began crying. 

That’s how I feel now. I feel humbled and blessed beyond belief. Time has slowed down. 

Shoulder report

I actually got used to cycling in Yellowstone. It requires an attention that wears you down, so it’s important to keep focused. My method, in the areas without a shoulder, was to physically wave to each car passing behind me. That way I was establishing a visual connection with them. I watched the traffic move through my space in my rear view mirror. I would routinely hear big RVs and industrial trucks approach and, in particularly dangerous moments, I would pull off the road. This may seem like a lot of effort to you. But you have to understand that, when the riding is good and safe in Yellowstone, it’s sublime.

The shoulder is great from: West Yellowstone to Old Faithful and from Old Faithful north to ten miles above Norris Junction. It’s pretty good from Norris to Canyon Village. The eastern part of the park, in the Absaroka Range, is much less crowded and stunning. 

Blatherings 

I spent a total of six days in Yellowstone — long enough that, when I successfully pushed my bike through an unruly bison herd in the Lamar Valley, folks cheered for me. “We’ve seen you everywhere!” one woman told me. We stood among a dozen others on a sagebrush precipice, surrounded by a thousand-strong throng of the bison. “You’re crazy! I mean…” she threw her hands up, searching for the proper word. “It’s wonderful!” I laughed. “It’s a little bit of both,” I said. 

My six days here were separated by a jaunt to the Tetons, which were too hazy to properly enjoy. In that time I hit all of the major attractions in the park. The weird, Venusian landscape of the Norris Geyser Basin. Mammoth Hot Springs, an entire, smoldering mountain made up of entombed thermophiles. The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and both Yellowstone waterfalls. Of course, Old Faithful and Grand Prismatic. Yellowstone Lake. The Absarokas and the Gallatins. I probably cycled several hundred miles within the park. I’ve generally stopped looking at my odometer. 

I was also able to plant myself for two nights at Mammoth Campground and, with a backpack generously lent by the lovely camp hosts there, I climbed Mt. Bunsen. The steep ascent took me above treeline and offered an outrageous view on a clear day of the northern end of the park, the stately Gallatin range and the wilds within. I found complete solitude here deep in a lodgepole pine forest and endured the hardest rain of my summer to date. I later thought I’d found myself alone swimming in a deep pool of the Yellowstone River, at sunset, until a bull bison lumbered through the woods. A solitary deer paused mid-step on the opposite riverbank and stared at me, onmoving, for 45 minutes. Chills racked me when I watched a black wolf sprint across a distant meadow of tall grass. Bighorn sheep side-eyed me as they traversed a boulder field above Sylvan Pass. 

Each morning I would consider leaving Yellowstone. I joked to myself, facetiously, that the park was like an abusive relationship. It was often dangerous and stressful to navigate — especially during its downpours. The food was expensive. I couldn’t do laundry or shower for an entire week. I was becoming run-down after days of vigilance against grizzlies — which I did not see — and marauding RVs. Yet I couldn’t leave. 

I virtually begged for mercy from the beauty on my last two days there. I simply couldn’t keep stopping at every juncture, every bend that deserved an entire afternoon of exploring. In one of my last stops, I pulled over at a bubbling vat of noxious fumes. There stood a raggedy bison, its fur laying around its haunches in strips, its ribs jutting from skin. It stood there, alone, waiting to die. 

This week I traveled completely out of my way to savor an area. I plan to do much more of this. I’m considering purchasing a small backpack for day-hikes. 

I’m writing now in the basement of the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, WY. It’s a top-rate museum. I’m writing in a leather chair next to the McCracken Research Library, which remains empty and inaccessible beyond locked, glass doors. Inside is a hall of leather-bound books and a mahogany table. READING ROOM AVAILABLE BY APPOINTMENT ONLY, reads the script on the glass. It’s a Sunday; I’ve had multiple staff attempt to open the room for me, but the sole woman with authority is off work today. So I’m writing next to the library in the hopes that I receive some inspiration and peace from them space via osmosis. Maybe someone will unlock the door. 

Some thoughts 

The time afforded by money has given me much to chew on. I’m developing some journalism ideas to explore the nexus of indefinite vacations, bohemian vagabondism and the American middle class. I promise any story that results from this won’t sound nearly as pretentious. 

It occurred to me recently, through my conversations with others on the road, that I have lived too conservatively. I’ve encountered no shortage of people who no longer hold themselves back from what they want to do and who they want to be. I’m not going to do this anymore. 

It’s incredible that something as silly as riding a bike across the country can impart such lofty virtues: tranquility, audacity, self-sufficiency, generosity, vulnerability.