Honeymoon Days 8-9: Grand Teton National Park

My yin and I were greeted to Grand Teton National Park by a family of tourists posing in front of the welcome sign. It was incredibly cute, but the father's choice of composition seemed strange to us because the children were directly in front of the sign, which obscured the name of the park:

family of tourists

But this is beside the point.

The point is that the Tetons are probably my favorite stop thus far. It didn't seem as crowded as Yellowstone, and the motel room we ended up staying in was a small efficiency in Teton Village that was clearly designed with ski bums in mind:

3 could sleep in the bedroom and 2 more in the living room

This meant we were able to cook our own meals and brew our own coffee, both of which are high on life's list of simple, sublime pleasures. This left us feeling refreshed and reinvigorated the next morning when we took an eight-mile hike around Jenny Lake:

my yin on the southern shore of Jenny Lake

The views are incredible on this hike, providing stunning vistas of the peaks that surround the lake. Snow whips across the mountain tops and falls on the path below:

Eventually we made it around to Hidden Falls and asked a stranger with a tripod to take a picture of us. We've been learning little tricks like this along the way, looking for the telltale gear and accessories that point out the least amateur of the amateur photographers.

nonetheless, results may vary

What doesn't show up in this image, however, is just how packed Hidden Falls was. Not Yellowstone packed, but busier than one would expect given the amount of snow on the ground:

my yin is a trooper

This is because there is a small boat that ferries visitors from the south end of the lake to a dock on the west side, which is only a half mile from the falls. I call it the "Coward Boat."

the small dot in front of the treeline is the Coward Boat

Along this hike we also saw all kinds of wildlife, including this creature, which is either a marmot, a pine marten, or a beaver:

the debate rages on

Most impressive was this bull moose:

He was munching on tree branches and twigs, and it was about as close to a moose as I ever hope to be. In fact, he was so close that you could actually see his teeth:

After snapping copious photos, I lowered my head and walked past him, glancing out of the corner of my eye top make sure he wasn't coming my direction. Not long after we passed, he made his way onto the path:

yikes!

I also wondered if perhaps he was the father of the baby moose we saw the day before on the way into the park. Similar to the buffalo in Yellowstone, they caused a "moose jam":

And this grizzly caused a bear jam only a few minutes later:

It was worth the wait, though, because soon we saw that she had two cubs, one of which my yin photographed climbing down out of a tree:

There was also a second encounter with a marmot/beaver/pine marten. We were alerted to his presence by a strange chirping sound that we initially mistook for a bird. Eventually we found the source of the sound, and my yin wondered if he was standing on top of the rock because he felt threatened by us. I told her that he was probably just horny.

Speaking of horny, we took our trip at the perfect time of to see mothers and their young. In the non-human animal world, the males seem to have very little to do with raising the young, and the mothers cast out the children as soon as they can fend for themselves. Take, for instance, this two-year old black bear, which my yin and I first saw crossing the road on the way down from Signal Mountain's summit:

We were the first people on the scene and ended up causing our own bear jam. We watched him for several minutes and were delighted to see him walking this log like a tight rope:

There was also all sorts of poetic landscapes and still lifes in the Tetons, ranging from this lonely tree that straddled the dividing line between light and darkness:

To this pine branch that caught the midday light as if it was dusk:

Even the camera's imperfections worked in the name of art, perfectly distorting the white balance in this photograph to create an image whose plasma blue snowscape actually approximates the electricity of the experience itself:

Needless to say, it was hard to leave Wyoming...

Honeymoon Days 6-8: Yellowstone

The story of our trip to Yellowstone begins (and ends, of course) in Wyoming, which I had never been to before. Other than watching Brokeback Mountain a couple of years ago, I knew virtually nothing about the state, and one of the first things that struck me was its strange penchant for peppering its interstates with iconic hilltop silhouettes:

buffalo

cowboy

dinosaur

jackalope

This progression of images had the strange effect of diminishing one's ability to distinguish between real and not real, and when we came to this hilltop, it took both my yin and I a moment to realize that these were, in fact, actual cows:

real cows (and one silhouette?)

Nonetheless, everything was going as planned, which made us as happy as this horse rolling in the grass north of Cheyenne:

But this is beside the point.

The point is that we made a final pit stop in Cody on our way to Yellowstone's east entrance. Inside the store, we struck up a conversation with a clerk who said, "The east entrance? I think it's closed."

"Closed?"

"Yeah," he said. "There was an avalanche last night."

"Avalanche?"

"Yep. Either you'll have to wait until it reopens at eight o'clock tonight or drive all the way around through Montana and go through the north entrance."

And so we drove through Montana:

stunning landscapes

(and rainbows)

pig races held in saloons

(and rainbows)

snow-covered clay banks

(and rainbows)

Somewhere along the way my car reached the 100,000 mile mark:

and we reached our destination just before sundown:

We checked into our hotel, and the hallway leading to our room looked oddly like the one in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining:

our hallway

Kubrick's hallway

This eerie likeness only grew over the course of the following day because Yellowstone resembles nothing so much as another planet:

Mammoth Springs

Palette Spring

above Mammoth Springs

Norris Geyser Basin

It's difficult to describe just how strange it is to see these things one after another. It seems so fake, and yet it's undeniable real. Call me old-fashioned, but it's hard for me to accept that sometimes the earth simply boils up from holes in the ground:

and that sometimes these openings just happen to look like vaginas:

But this is also beside the point.

The point is that there are also breathtakingly impressive landscapes spread across the park, ranging from this view of still-frozen Yellowstone Lake:

to this vista of "Yellowstone's Grand Canyon":

It was here that my yin and I decided to break out the tripod and self-timer, which caught us mid-goof:

The park certainly seems to bring out the silliness in us, and we found ourselves laughing time and again as our brains gradually became over-saturated with one amazing sight after another:

my yin in front of Dragon's Mouth Spring

Perhaps it's a side effect of all the sulfur in the air, which oozes and bubbles and gurgles from pits small and large alike. On the upside, one can pass gas with absolute impunity.

But this is also beside the point.

The point, finally, is that Yellowstone is lousy with wildlife. There are grizzly bears causing "bear jams":

a grizzly

and the jam it inspired

and giant frisky hares:

and once-endangered species:

and lazy elk by the streams:

A park ranger even told us that some of the old buffalo get arthritis; that's why they go to rest near the thermal springs. As with humans, it helps to ease their aching bones:

These bison are far and away the most prevalent species in the park, and what was initially met with amazement soon became commonplace. But still, we had to take a picture of this mother and her baby:

This phenomenon concerned me some, though. The animals are treated almost like circus attractions or novelties, and I felt torn between gratitude and disdain. On the one hand, I'm grateful that a place exists where animals are able to roam without fear of human predation. On the other hand, it seemed almost exploitative, with the human animals objectifying non-human animals and turning them into nothing more than photo opportunities:

one jackass, one bison

I, of course, was not immune to this tendency:

But I did my best to stay a respectful distance from the animals. Our fancy new camera and zoom lens helped to accomplish this, but it was still impossible to deny the fact that I felt that urge to get closer, to take one more picture, to see one more thing...

The fact is, however, that the best moments cannot be captured by the image and run through one's fingers like water:

my yin and copious amounts of falling water