September 5
Official retirement age! A quiet day of reading and cleaning up. Left the park to post a blog or two and celebrate with an ice cream cone!!
September 8
We are in Yellowstone for our second night. Left Devils Tower Tues. 6th, spent the night in a Pamida (a store like Walmart) parking lot…love those free nights! Wed. morning we found our trailer batteries dead!! Barely got the pop-out pulled in and headed to the NAPA dealer right down the street. Working with our warranty people all things were resolved within an hour or so and we were off to Cody, WY. Just another little bump in the road!
Our drive to Cody was beautiful but our drive through Bill Cody State Park and the Shoshone National Forest was spectacular. We were blown away, really. Here are some of my thoughts at that time:
This is our glimpse of God! If you could drive through God, this is what it would be like! Around every corner or curve in the winding road are surprises that are grander than the last. The vastness, immensity, and scale of the mountains, plateaus, canyons, and cliffs with the clean swift river dashing winding along the base of it all and the road following its path are indescribable. It is awe inspiring. I can’t imagine how those who first saw this land, never having seen pictures or movies of it, must have felt. I find myself welling up with emotion as the miles go by and then finding the quietude of respect for such profound beauty, then another curve in the road brings more unimaginable beauty in forms, textures, scale, colors – craggy topped mountains or massive expanses of pines with rock reliefs, more colors, textures, tones, shadows and sunlit panoramic views, bringing gratitude and wonder and we aren’t even in Yellowstone!!
Just saw
a new (to me) type of tandem bike. The front person is close to the ground with their feet out in front of them and the second rider is in the normal height of a standard bike seat behind and above the front rider. They are pulling a little trailer up these grades!
This ride is like a symphony. It ebbs and flows with crescendos and soothing refrains. Colors, textures, expanses, abyss-like canyons, miles of charred trees – some standing, defiant and others fallen soldiers –sliver gray, stripped by the elements of their charred coats , lying naked and abandoned; plumes of smoke from a new fire and rays of sun t
ake turns grabbing my attention; splashes of gold, pale and bright lavender, deep yellows and greens, rust and tan dried grasses, evergreens/pines so young and tender and some old and sturdy; steep hills dressed in yellow and green ground cover and vast meadows filled with endless dusty green sage foliage supported by dark chocolate brown limbs; Yellowstone Lake smooth and reflective and dappled with light breezes expands as far as the eye can see until the blue gray hues of distant mountain peaks appear; at 7734 feet elevation this lake takes my breath away as our car and trailer slowly climb the steep grades and then descend slowly as we skirt the edge of this ever changing water filled caldera.
Wetlands bustling with life.
I could go on and on (I know some of you think I already have!!) It seems infinite even in this finite world. I can’t begin to capture this on film (to use an old terminology!) because it is an experience, not a series of material forms, although the forms do represent the ideas I am entertaining and the music I am seeing and hearing; the Soul I am being shown.
Official retirement age! A quiet day of reading and cleaning up. Left the park to post a blog or two and celebrate with an ice cream cone!!
September 8
We are in Yellowstone for our second night. Left Devils Tower Tues. 6th, spent the night in a Pamida (a store like Walmart) parking lot…love those free nights! Wed. morning we found our trailer batteries dead!! Barely got the pop-out pulled in and headed to the NAPA dealer right down the street. Working with our warranty people all things were resolved within an hour or so and we were off to Cody, WY. Just another little bump in the road!
Our drive to Cody was beautiful but our drive through Bill Cody State Park and the Shoshone National Forest was spectacular. We were blown away, really. Here are some of my thoughts at that time:
This is our glimpse of God! If you could drive through God, this is what it would be like! Around every corner or curve in the winding road are surprises that are grander than the last. The vastness, immensity, and scale of the mountains, plateaus, canyons, and cliffs with the clean swift river dashing winding along the base of it all and the road following its path are indescribable. It is awe inspiring. I can’t imagine how those who first saw this land, never having seen pictures or movies of it, must have felt. I find myself welling up with emotion as the miles go by and then finding the quietude of respect for such profound beauty, then another curve in the road brings more unimaginable beauty in forms, textures, scale, colors – craggy topped mountains or massive expanses of pines with rock reliefs, more colors, textures, tones, shadows and sunlit panoramic views, bringing gratitude and wonder and we aren’t even in Yellowstone!!
Just saw
a new (to me) type of tandem bike. The front person is close to the ground with their feet out in front of them and the second rider is in the normal height of a standard bike seat behind and above the front rider. They are pulling a little trailer up these grades!This ride is like a symphony. It ebbs and flows with crescendos and soothing refrains. Colors, textures, expanses, abyss-like canyons, miles of charred trees – some standing, defiant and others fallen soldiers –sliver gray, stripped by the elements of their charred coats , lying naked and abandoned; plumes of smoke from a new fire and rays of sun t
ake turns grabbing my attention; splashes of gold, pale and bright lavender, deep yellows and greens, rust and tan dried grasses, evergreens/pines so young and tender and some old and sturdy; steep hills dressed in yellow and green ground cover and vast meadows filled with endless dusty green sage foliage supported by dark chocolate brown limbs; Yellowstone Lake smooth and reflective and dappled with light breezes expands as far as the eye can see until the blue gray hues of distant mountain peaks appear; at 7734 feet elevation this lake takes my breath away as our car and trailer slowly climb the steep grades and then descend slowly as we skirt the edge of this ever changing water filled caldera.Wetlands bustling with life.
I could go on and on (I know some of you think I already have!!) It seems infinite even in this finite world. I can’t begin to capture this on film (to use an old terminology!) because it is an experience, not a series of material forms, although the forms do represent the ideas I am entertaining and the music I am seeing and hearing; the Soul I am being shown.
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