We're Not Undead Cannibals, We Just Look Like Them

As far as I’m concerned, it’s a damn fine sign when, after an adventure, it takes a little recovery time to get your booty shaking again. You wear your body out, it means you did something. You weren’t just hanging out on your couch eating potato chip dip directly from the container with a spoon while watching the remake of Dawn of Dead for the 117th time. Though, admittedly, that can be pretty entertaining, too.

So when my buddy Amber and I returned to her home in Idaho from a weekend jaunt through Wyoming and Montana looking and feeling only slightly more sentient than one of Romero’s slow-ass zombies in the original Dawn of the Dead, I was pleased. When I spent the entire next day in my pajamas – and Amber returned home from her shift as a morning rock radio jock literally groaning and headed straight to her bed for a four hour power nap – I was ecstatic. 24 hours of recovery time needed? We’d pushed the limits a wee bit on this one.

It began on a bright and not-terribly early Friday morning with a 90 minute or so drive from Idaho Falls into western Yellowstone. I’d never been to the park and was nearly levitating out of my seat with excitement. And not even moments after entering, suddenly, there before us were…BISON.

“Jesus Christ, Amber, THOSE ARE BISON,” I bellowed. (Or, buffalo…I still don’t know the difference.) “PULL OVER PULL OVER PULL OVER!!!” And she did. And we snapped a bunch of shots of the strange, little-horned animals, which were grazing in a far-off field. And then we got back into the car and drove for about 2 more minutes and discovered: MORE BISON. And after that we saw more bison, and then some more bison after that. Turns out, Yellowstone is postively riddled with bison. They’re like pigeons in New York City.

And they seem totally unconcerned with humans and they hang out really close to the road and make these weird sort of snorting, chuffing sounds. And as cool as they are – and as enormous a thrill it was to see their babies NURSING – by the end of our five hours in the park my response to seeing another bison was pretty much, “Oh. Wow. Another bison. Any of that jerky left?”

But we saw other cool stuff in Yellowstone – like elk, which prompted me to scream, “Jesus Christ, Amber, THAT’S AN ELK!!! PULL OVER PULL OVER PULL OVER!!!” And she did, and I got some pictures of the elk.

And we hiked here and there and saw lots of spooky steam rising in the park and gorgeous mountains off in the distance and even Old Faithful, which, while prompt, was somehow not as magnificent as I expected it to be. Old Faithful’s a must-see if just because, well, it’s Old Faithful. But compared to all the other jaw-dropping sights of Yellowstone, it left me ever so slightly disappointed. Maybe it was the horde of tourists around it. Maybe it was just that it had started to rain and it was getting dark and we still had to drive to Livingston. (I recommend early June as the perfect time to visit Yellowstone, btw. Generally, the park was pretty close to deserted while were there, and that was awesome.)

After Old Faithful faithfully blew, we headed north, where the terrain got steeper and more dramatic and pretty soon I was hollering things like, “OH! OH! WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT!! BEAUTIFUL!!” And Amber would dutifully pull over the car and we’d stand and stare at some unspeakably lovely vista and get back into the car and drive until we saw something else just as stunning. And then we were finally through the park and out the North Gate and on our way to a whole ‘nother kind of adventure.

Coming soon…The Bars of Livingston, or “Did we actually pee in someone’s yard last night?”