Oh you know, just a Sunday walk in the park:

Okay let me back up 🙂 First things first, we had a couple of visitors in our campground this morning:

These two came walking through as we were hitching up the fishing boat to the truck.  They chomped on a few leaves from the trees, licked the bumper of a car and sniffed the tent at the site next to us.  I am so glad the couple sleeping in that little tent stayed asleep because they would have had a huge surprise staring down at them!  The moose made their way down to the river, crossed and disappeared into the bushes on the other side.  I’m sure they had a great moose day.

As for us humans, we wondered down to the restaurant I used to cook at on main street in Ennis and had a breakfast of pancakes and bacon, yes please, all day long :). John met up with one of his friends, another John and we all headed out of Ennis, the boys ready for a day of fishing.  Once we got to the put in and the boat was all squared away, John x 2 and Aaron set off and I set my sights on Yellowstone National Park!  I knew the guys would be on the river for about 5 hours of fishing and I was only 40 minutes away from the Park so, heck yes!  Any day in a National Park is a good day!

Once I got through the entrance gate, I knew I wanted to go to the Old Faithful area.  Now it’s true, this is the most popular spot in the park and it’s true that it is August and there were going to be about 5 gazillion people there, but I was on my way, crowds be damned.  I can’t explain what the draw of Old Faithful is for me.  I have seen it erupt probably 10-15 times and each time I swear, I tear up. I have no idea why.  My kids will tell you that this is not impressive, that I cry at everything.  And that is pretty much true…the olympics, movies, sappy commercials and Old Faithful.

My own personal opinion about this crying phenomenon with a watching water shoot out of a hole in the ground is that I am amazed at the common experience everyone there is having.  I have seen the thing go off before, but for the vast majority of people sitting there watching this is their first time.  And everyone is in awe.  I rarely hear people walking away from the eruption saying “I thought it would be better than that!”.  It is humbling to sit and watch the earth heat water to a point of eruption.  It reminds me of my place, reminds me of my humanity and lets me see a little humanity from a couple of thousand of my closest friends.  And it is hard not to smile watching people lose their breath at the beauty and power of our world.  xxoo