Driving into Cody last night, a sign announced “Don’t California Our Cody”. I’m not sure what this meant but I remembered that this was a single night stopover and I was glad about that. When checking into the KOA, I saw advertising flyers for pizza delivery. Genius! I remembered friends of ours had ordered pizza on their RV trip. Hungry and with a serious case of “monkey hear, monkey do”, we ordered a pizza. “Bring it to the beige Sprinter van” we explained to the pizza clerk on the phone. Sure enough, an hour later, a delivery man was knocking of the side of the van. Pizza was soon in hand and so was molten lava cake. Unfortunately, this is where concepts and reality collide. The idea of getting a pizza delivered to your campsite? 10. The actual pizza? 4. The cake? 6 (even bad cake is a 5 – after all, it’s cake). While the chipmunk hoarder in me was happy that we had easy to eat food in the refrigerator, the Californian in me scoffed at the sub-par vittles. Cody definitely could use with a California improvement or two.
Morning came soon enough and we left Cody early. Passing Buffalo Bill State Park we saw snow-capped mountains in the distance and water reservoirs in the foreground. The expanse of the state was in front of us and so was the attitude. In a private yard, a home-made sign announced “You are in Trump Country”. Later, when going through the Shosone National Forest, a posted sign crossed all political lines – it was a cry for unity. “Bears are dangerous. Do not approach. $5000 fine”. Hopefully we can at least all agree on the dangers of charismatic mega-fauna.
When traveling long distances, my mind will sometimes wander and features in the landscape will capture my imagination. I play the “Landscape Game”. Across the northern part of the Shoshone river, I eagerly point to a mountain that looks exactly like a question mark! “Do you see it? Do you see it?” There is a long pause and apparently Francesca sees the peak differently. For her, that exact same peak is the profile of Queen Nefertiti. “Are you looking at that one?” I point emphatically at the peak (the one that looks like a question mark). She nods. And then I pause. Queen Nefertiti. Question mark. I see both! We are both right. And yes, there’s a lot we don’t know about Queen Nefertiti. And that’s how the “Landscape Game” works.
Highway 14 brings us to the eastern entrance of Yellowstone National Park. The landscape is unexpectedly charred and black. Stripped of leaves, these arboreal victims of wildfire are the deathly shadows of their former self. Contrasting their upright positions are the random scatterings of fallen trees. There are hundreds of trees wasted away in this land once besieged by flames. In Yellowstone’s vast 20 million acres, there is room for fire and nature’s mayhem. It can and does contain it all. These trees look like giants played a game of pick up sticks and we lost.
With each road and turn, we venture further into the park, incredible rock formations present before us. It looks like an ancient city built out of rock. Some formations look like niches which were intentionally carved out and used as ancient dwellings or ceremonial locations. But this is not the case. These forms are simply the random beauty of sedimentary rock and gravity combined with a bit of luck and chance. Rough with clean lines and sometimes sharply jagged, they are unusual and compelling creations.
“Be Bear Aware” a sign says. Yes. As Francesca drives, we are actively searching for Yogi and Boo-Boo. Instead, we gratefully see a herd of bison and then on a windy curved road, I see something yellow and black scurry under a rock. Later, I learn that it is a yellow bellied marmot. A few miles later, off a rocky cliff, we see a herd of big horned sheep. Climbing above 7700’ in elevation and on a curve, we see movement up on the sheer cliff above us. It is a mamma black bear and her innocent cub bumbling alongside her. The fauna here is wonderfully prolific.
On a straight-away road, piles of cars are parked on the side. It is our first “bear jam”. Much like the freeway traffic jams of Los Angeles where we lived for many years, these are fellow tourists wanting to see a bit of nature in action. Personally, I think it’s misnamed. They are really “people jam”. Semantics aside, in the near distance, is a single, large male grizzly.
His larger size and pronounced hump on his upper back identifies him as a grizzly versus the black bear we saw earlier.
The grizzly meanders, sniffs the air and at one point, he faces the crowd directly. It is beautiful and alarming to have a 600 pound, hungry omnivore looking at me, and at the collective us. The bear’s head meanders side to side as he assesses the assortment of tourists lined up on the road like so many tasty treats in a kitchen cupboard. Thankfully, there is nothing in the cupboard that he wants. Instead he paws the earth with his 4 inch claws for grubs and roots.
At one point, the grizzly lopes uphill, only to stop, contemplate the universe and then go downhill shortly after. Then straddling a log seemed like a good idea. Why? Who knows? It’s grizzly bear stuff.
Later in the day, we were stopped at a four way intersection, Francesca shouts “Wow!” She sees a gray canine running across the street with blinding speed. I snap to attention but by the time, we are able to make the turn, the canine was on the other side peering out from the end of a grassy field where it meets the dark, woods edge. An over-sized face turns and watches us unblinkingly as we pass.
I have heard and seen coyotes over the many years of living in the Hollywood Hills. Looking at the canine’s face, this was either the most robust and intense coyote I had ever seen or dare I say, it - was it a wolf? Could it be the lone wolf? This canine did not appear to be with a pack which is unusual for either coyote or wolf. Wolves are predominately in the north east of the park in the Lamar valley. We were in the southern park lands inching towards the Grand Tetons. Later I learn that coyotes run with their tails pointed downward and wolves run with their tails horizontal to the ground. The face, the intensity and intelligent expression reminded me of scenes from nature documentaries. And of course, the wolves in dog food commercials. Verdict? We’ll never know. One thing is for sure, marketing ploys are deeply embedded in the soft tissue of my brain.
Later on our drive, we see another male grizzly. It’s worth mentioning again, the fauna here is amazingly profuse. Passing Lewis Lake, we exit Yellowstone and go south towards the Grand Teton. In the offing is a solitary sub-adult sand hill crane. Oddly, the crane is not part of a flock. A few years ago in a rural area near Sacramento, we heard flocks of sandhill cranes chortling in the fields. It was deafeningly loud. But today, in Yellowstone, it is very different. There is just this solitary crane.
Soon we are distracted by herds of elk grazing in nearby fields. As we drive closer, two women riders are on horseback crossing the road. Flashing broad smiles, they nod in kinship. Their long blond hair wave goodbye as they trot along the windy trail through the elk-lands. This land is a gift to all.