But there was one more sight to see. I drove out from the lake and along the southern curve of the figure eight into a wasteland. The forest fires had been particularly devastating in this area, miles of hillsides decimated by the blaze, including Douglas firs five hundred years old. Signs of renewal were everywhere. But it looked as though decades, maybe centuries, would pass before the wasteland was fully healed.
About forty miles from the lake, I reached my destination: Old Faithful. Immediately, I felt on more familiar footing. The area is just as you have seen it in movies and National Geographic specials. Benches line the geyser perimeter and clocks are positioned to tell you when the next eruption is expected.
I had about ten minutes before the next event, so I explored the Old Faithful Inn, a massive log structure that stands next to the geyser area. At the gift shop, I bought a Coke (12 oz.) then walked outside and claimed a seat on a shadeless bench, enduring the bright afternoon sun. A crowd of maybe a hundred or so was ahead of me. But there was plenty of room, since the circle of benches sits well back from the geyser itself.
Only a minute or two delayed, Old Faithful started to erupt. I saw then why the benches were set back. A column of water far larger than Echinus launched up a hundred feet or more into the air, a towering crystalline willow. I had followed the retrograde river to the upside down waterfall.
A mist, lighter this time and cooler, anointed the surrounding sightseers, the spots on my glasses a small price to pay for history. After a few moments, Old Faithful was finished and so was I. I walked quickly out to the parking lot, cleaned my lenses, and began the drive south out of the park.
Yellowstone had one last joke for me. The Snake River flows south from Yellowstone past the park entrance, and the southern road follows the river. But the river descends a lot faster than the road. Soon I was again driving along a steep sloping chasm just waiting to swallow my car and me.
As the ravine got deeper, my driving got slower, until I had a long line of cars and trucks, big ones, behind me. I pulled over once to let the traffic out from behind me, but another line quickly formed, making me that much more nervous. Fortunately, I was driving on the inside lane rather than the outside. That’s all that kept me going.
After twenty-some miles of serial breath-holding (much better than closing your eyes), I finally made it down and out of the mountains. I pulled over again to recover, which I always seemed to be doing in Yellowstone for one reason or another. The next time I go to Yellowstone, I’m bringing someone with me, someone who isn’t afraid of heights. Or elk. Or wolves. Or buffalo. Or supervolcanos.
I got out of my car and wandered across a bridge, where a stream about forty feet wide joined the Snake. Upstream, I detected a loud rushing sound, so I hiked a bit through the trees and leaned out over some rocks to peer up the channel.
Maybe a hundred yards or so farther upstream, another waterfall splattered down, wide and not very high, but boisterous, unburdened, splashing along the rocky course. The air, full of spray and noise even so far downstream, felt fresh, untouched, healthy. I sat on a rock and closed my eyes and listened. Just remembering the sound:
sssssshhhhhhhsssssshhhhhhhssssshhhhhhhsssssshhhhhhsssssshhhhhhhhssssshhhhhhssssssshhhhhhhhsssshhhhhsssshhhhsssshhhhhhsssshhhhsssssssshhhhsssshhhh
puts me back there. I stayed for a time, to breathe and feel unburdened myself. It has become one of my peaceful places.
I knew by then the gifts in the Wizard’s bag: two adult geysers and a baby geyser, two wolf pups (or the same wolf twice), pastel parapets, a hawk or osprey or eagle, boiling mudpots, nibbling elk, steaming vents, nosy mule deer, mountains, bison, valleys, squirrels, rivers, chipmunks, lakes, meadows, and waterfalls, waterfalls, waterfalls.
Even where there is no happiness, there is the next joy and the next. The trick is to look. Yellowstone taught me that. Home didn’t look the same to Dorothy after Oz. But it was more beautiful, not less. Oz had taught her to see.
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