.jpg)
I've just been watching one of the episodes of Ken Burns' latest effort, The National Parks: America's Best Idea. And I'm speechless and a little emotional. If you haven't seen this work please please tune in to your local PBS channel and have a peek. It's well worth your while.
Besides the amazing cinematography and terrific music there is a good history lesson. But that's not what's got me going. In the final 2 hour installment there are some interviews where people talk about how when they were kids their parents dragged them to the National Parks and how the experience changed them and their lives. Those interviews got me to thinking about the National Parks and National Monuments I've visited. The list reads something like this: In no particular order
Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Rocky Mountain, Glacier, Mount Ranier, Olympic, North Cascades, Sequoia, Yosemite, Death Valley, Grand Canyon, Wind Cave, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Zion, Arches, Canyonlands, Glacier Bay, Kenai Fjiords, White Sands, Great Sand Dunes, Badlands, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, and I'm sure there are some that I've missed. There's also Banff, Jasper, Yoho, and Wells Gray in Canada.
But as I remember it, Yellowstone was my first and still my favorite. Listening to the people tell of their first National Park visits I was transported back to the first trip to Yellowstone with my parents. It was 1964 and both my sisters were gone from home with families of their own so this trip was just me and Mom and Dad. We set out from Wichita in Dad's 1964 Dodge pickup with a small camper shell on the back to sleep in and headed west to Colorado before turning north towards Wyoming. We drove hard and managed to make it to Rock River, Wyoming where we rented a sleezy motel room the first night. It was my first experience in Wyoming and I remember being amazed at the number of antelope alongside the roads. We must have seen thousands of them. The next day we made the rest of the drive to Yellowstone and camped near Old Faithful that night.
We'd talked about bears and driving through the south part of Yellowstone we saw quite a few before we got to the campground. Supper that night was cooked on our campstove and it was a bit chilly so we ate inside the camper. After we finished eating we were talking about bears and getting nervous about leaving our skillet on the picnic table where the grease might attract the critters. Dad and I were daring each other to go out in the dark and get the skillet and I was so spooked there was no way I was going to do it. Finally Dad said he would....he opened the door of the camper and stepped out then stopped, spun around, and dove back in the camper. I was sitting by the door and convinced that a bear was about to eat his feet, I grabbed the chain on the top of the door and slammed it shut, nearly taking Dad's feet off in the process. When I came back to my senses and my heart rate slowed I saw him laying in the floor laughing so hard he was crying. It was all a trick! Gee, who would have figured him for a lowdown trick like that. I guess that's why his childhood nickname was Lowdown. At least that's what Grandma Suzie always called him. During that trip we spent 3 or 4 days inside the park itself, I can't remember exactly how long we were there but it was long enough to spend time seeing just about every area of the park.
Later, we drove south through Grand Teton National Park, through Jackson Hole, and south through the Starr Valley where I was dared into getting my first taste of fresh cheddar cheese at a dairy south of Afton and became a lifelong devotee of cheese. On through northern Utah where we got stuck on a 1 lane road during construction and had to go in reverse about 1/2 mile down a moutain road to let the construction trucks through. What an adventure.
I guess because it was my first National Park Yellowstone holds a special place in my mind and heart. I don't get there nearly often enough but each time I do it's a combination of new and old memories. Like the time I was there in 1991 for a few days this time on a serious photographic mission and experienced the best fishing of my life....and came across a place where there was a grizzly track over the top of my boot track on a creek bank where I'd walked only about 10 minutes earlier. And again when I was there in 2007 and saw my first grizzly and heard my first wolf call. Amazing.
Heather has been talking about visiting Yellowstone to see the wolves and as I write this I'm 99% convinced that sometime in May, probably the week before Memorial Day, you'll be able to find us in the Lamar Valley near Cooke City. And hopefully I can pass on to her some of the feelings and memories I have from my first extended visit to Yellowstone. It's been added to the bucket list.
So take the time to seek out the Ken Burns series on the National Parks. Better yet, get out and visit a National Park or National Monument. And if you need a co-pilot, call me. I'm always up for a road trip.
