Yellowstone ... What Can I say?

No kidding?!

I have spent more than 14 magical days and nights in and around the Park since August. As I sit down to organize my information about the park for an October deadline, I have to fight a wall of self-doubt that I can't possibly add to the volumes already written about America's first national park.

I stayed at Old Faithful Inn and Lake Yellowstone Hotel. i visited the park's four other National Historic Landmarks as well (quick - can you name them?). I camped in multiple sites and visited all 12 front-country (and a few backcountry) sites in the park. I biked up Mt. Washburn and out to Lone Star Geyser. I hiked from Lewis Lake to Shoshone Lake and back. I stared down an ermine. I was startled by deer and elk. The bison mostly ignored me. I joined the queue to see a bear amble by the road on three occasions. Wolves and beavers eluded me.

I met really neat people like MacNeil Lyons of Yellowstone Association. I chatted with kayakers Jess and Kale from Wyoming, making their annual fishingn trip to the park - without their father for the first time in a decade. I met the Frugal Fly-Fisherman from Kansas. I watched Lone Star erupt with the resident artist (and his wife) from Old Faithful Inn - who retired from firefighting in Casper to paint full time.

I knew the park would reveal itself in so many ways to me... the buffalo and the owl at my campsite in Bridge Bay. The bald eagle soaring above me as I drove Gull Point Drive. But I also anticipated that the people who inhabit, visit and work in the park woiuld offer experiences and stories as rich as anything I could encounter on my own. And I was not disappointed.

I'll try to share some excerpts here as I get down to the business of writing. And, since you didn't know, the four other National Historic Landmarks are the roadside "kiosk" that tells the story of Obsidian Cliff; and the interpretive exhibits/musems at Norris, Madison and Fishing Bridge. Collectively these four landmarks have been selected because nearly a century ago, they changed the way we experience our parks. No longer did you learn about a natural wonder in an urban museum, and then head out to the country to see it. Beginning with these landmarks, the educational and inspirational aspect of National Parks went "trailside."

Fishing Bridge

PS - Kudos for Kenn.com's cartography class today. I chuckled.