Even earlier than the sunrise, I was up. I guess the car front seat can only sustain sleep for so long, even with a neck pillow. I groggily brushed my teeth there on the side of the road, winking as the sun peeked over the hills, and noted the first car of the morning driving past me, up onto the Beartooth Highway.

Just as I got ready to start the car, a bizarre sight: an older woman, 70 years old if she was a day, JOGGED past me and said good morning. “Good morning!” I blurted back, not really concealing my shock, then looked around to confirm I was indeed in the middle of nowhere. Some people just gotta show me up with their physical fitness.

I was the fifth car of the entire morning to hit the road. As it wound up into the mountains and I crossed back into Wyoming, I found myself utterly alone. Pulling over to take pictures, I kept mistaking the rushing river below me for the sound of traffic. I rose up and up and up, taking a mad set of switchbacks, and noting small patches of lingering snow that grew into sheets as I got higher. At one point a large red fox darted across the road, and as I slowed to take a picture, jogged right past me in the other lane faster than I could grab my camera.

I should mention that the weather thus far has been exceedingly cooperative; my only drizzly cloudy weather was on the boring day through Wyoming, and this morning it was back to a glorious blue sky.

Gradually, traffic started passing me from the other end of the road (it’s closed from 8pm – 8am). Finally I was headed downward, with even more incredible vistas as I descended into Yellowstone National Park.

(Beef jerky for breakfast is okay, right?)

I flashed my National Parks pass at the entry gate and skipped the $25 entry fee (much better than the single dollar I saved at Chimney Rock). Then I was cruising along the meadows en route to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

Suddenly in the road there was a buffalo.

He was just hangin’, chewing his cud; saw me approaching; and with a visible sigh, loped onto the side of the road for me.

Around the bend were dozens more buffalo, with tourists standing mere yards away snapping pictures. It was the first of a half-dozen buffalo herds I’d be seeing that day. This is a thing at Yellowstone: when wildlife are anywhere in the area, cars pull over with impunity to both sides of the road (sometimes leaving a single lane between) and form a mass of paparazzi, some of them with insane football-game telephoto lenses on tripods. There’s a surprising number of French and Germans among them.

I came to the first set of overlooks of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, which is pretty stunning. It has both upper and lower falls, each a thunderous mini-Niagara. And while it’s not a tenth the size of the “real” Grand Canyon, it’s every bit as beautiful. Plus you can see it in a day, which is all I had.

The winding Grand Loop Road took me south down the eastern edge of the park. There were no fences, no power lines, not even guardrails on the hairpin turns. What there were, though were tourists, tons of them. I was hopeful that arriving the day after Labor Day would help cut down on the crowd size, and maybe it did; all I’m saying is, I am NEVER coming to this place in the summertime. Chingow.

The weather grew warmer. I used one of the restrooms to change out of my polyester long underwear. As I did, I caught a whiff of myself; it had been four days since my last shower. Yikes.

I passed a stand of burned trees, I assume from the 1988 wildfires that I remember hearing about at the time. It was a neat example of rebirth: blackened trunks standing tall, and underneath them, an entirely new generation of young pines about six feet high. A whole new forest coming in to replace the old one. Given what’s going on in Austin right now, it was nice to see.

There was another cluster of tourists staring at a pack of wolves in the far distance. A bit later, a pack of pronghorns. At one of the viewpoints, two ospreys were visible in their nest below us. This place does not lack for wildlife, mis amigos.

The road took me along the north edge of Lake Yellowstone. I saw a sign for the West Thumb Geyser Basin, whatever that is, and turned; almost immediately I saw three bicyclists standing around a fountain of steam pouring out of the ground. Weird.

It was the first of many. Just past a stern sign warning me to stay on the boardwalk, I found a weird collection of bubbling cauldrons, many of them smoking, several with the potential to erupt at any time. For the first time I remembered that Yellowstone is on top of a gigantic supervolcano just waiting to blow. The presence of all of these tiny water volcanoes doesn’t help my comfort level with that fact.

Again and again, I passed tourists snapping pictures of buffalo. They’re freaking everywhere. Can’t somebody hunt these things to near-extinction or something? (…Too soon?)

The latter part of the day was kind of underwhelming. I followed the signs for Old Faithful, which has dedicated flyover ramps, a four-lane entry road, a Disneyland-sized parking lot, multiple hotels, even a damn shopping mall. This thing MUST be cool, right?

I walked from my car to Old Faithful itself. It’s in the middle of a barren plain, constantly steaming, and is surrounded on all sides by a wide boardwalk with two rows of seats about a hundred feet away. Five thousand people could comfortably watch it erupt.

I sat and waited patiently with the other tourists, watching the puffs of steam and waiting with my camera for the big moment. (For the uninitiated: “With a margin of error of 10 minutes, Old Faithful will erupt 65 minutes after an eruption lasting less than 2.5 minutes or 91 minutes after an eruption lasting more than 2.5 minutes.”) I was confused why there wasn’t some sort of outdoor countdown clock, but decided it was all part of the fun.

After 40 minutes or so, water began pouring out of the hole, and everyone started snapping pictures. Then it erupted.

…Look, if I’d never heard of a geyser before, and you sat me down in front of this thing with no introduction and I saw it go off, yes, I’d be mighty impressed. It’s a giant fountain of boiling water shooting 150 feet in the air, powered by the heat of the earth. I guess it’s just that I’ve had my whole life to get used to the idea, and the Disneyworld atmosphere surrounding it had me convinced that angels were going to fly out or something. Nope, it’s just water.

I took a few pictures, then walked back to my car before Old Faithful was even finished erupting. Meh.

The Grand Prismatic Spring wasn’t much better, though at least it’s inarguably beautiful. Still, you need some serious Photoshopping to make it look like it does in this picture, and the steam off of it obscures the colors a good amount. I also walked a good half-mile further down the trail than I had to, and had to double-back to get to the viewpoint. They could use a sign.

I stopped briefly at the Painter’s Pots, which are actually pretty cool, then hightailed it north out of Yellowstone. (More than once I saw a scenic overlook or touristy stop, muttered to myself “I’m sure it’s very nice,” and kept driving.) The weather seemed to agree with me, finally giving up on the gorgeous blue skies and starting to rain as I headed north out of the park.

But there was one more scenic sight, whether I liked it or not! Yet another tourist-paparazzi cluster had formed opposite a herd of elk, about 30 of them chilling by the river just next to the road. Here my borrowed 200mm lens came in handy.

Finally I was quit of Yellowstone. It had been a nice-enough whirlwind tour of the place. I drove an hour north to Livingston, which had a lovely downtown, and checked into the historic Murray Hotel next to the railroad tracks. Elated, I took a nice long hot shower and put on some actual clothes—jeans and a button-down shirt—even applying cologne before I went to eat at the Second Street Bistro, recommended by none other than Anthony Bourdain. Eh, it was okay; they wouldn’t let me substitute a salad for my side-of-fries, and the steak was passable but not great. Part of the underwhelming second half of the day, I suppose.

But the best part was yet to come. After posting the previous day’s blog entries, around 11pm, I went up to my quaint and historic hotel room and passed out. It was my first bed since Saturday, and my last before the Big Backpacking Adventure. It was spectacular.

Administrative notes:
1. I’m writing this from just outside the entrance to Glacier National Park. Yay, I’m here! Not likely to have Internet access until Monday-ish, so don’t freak when I don’t post.
2. Very quick-and-dirty set of pics from the first three days of my trip are up! Clicky

WARNING: Not a lot happens in this episode. My car almost runs out of gas, but it doesn’t. So that’s kind of anti-climactic, especially now that I spoiled it for you. But there’s laser-dinosaurs at the end!

From the KOA Campground in Douglas, Wyoming I pointed my car west across the emptiness. At least Wyoming has rolling emptiness; the hills had steadily grown since Nebraska, and the first things that you might call “mountains” were in the middle distance. Still, things were so barren and treeless that I frequently passed giant artificial wind breaks (i.e. fences). They could PLANT some trees, you’d think…

West of Casper I made a random stop when I saw some horses chewing grass along the roadside. I want to make some horse-friends, I thought. Those Clif Shot Bloks in my bag would make perfect horsey snacks, I thought.

And so they were, though I saw one of the three nonchalantly spit his out. The other two were more than happy to bicker over who’d had more Shot Bloks. Chill, guys, I’ve got a whole pack of them.

By 2:00 I was convinced Day 3 would be my most blasé of days, accented only by horse-feeding, until I turned the car north from Shoshone and found myself driving down Wind River Canyon. Continue reading Day 3: Feedin’ the Horseys →

I arrived at Chimney Rock about 150 years too late.

First, because its spire—today about 300 feet above the surrounding plains—was once much higher and more grandiose, but has been steadily chipped away over time by erosion and lightning strikes. Doesn’t even look like a chimney any more.

And second, because the original Indian name for Chimney Rock was apparently “Elk Penis.” Wicked. Continue reading Day 2: Driving the Oregon Trail →

I woke with the sun on Monday morning, as campers tend to do. It was cold and extremely damp: water droplets clung to the inside of my tent, and when I shuffled slightly, I got a very chilly early-morning shower from the ceiling. “GAH I’M AWAKE!”

Stepping carefully out onto the grass, I found myself camped next to the Platte River—when did THAT get there? Thick fog rose off of it like smoke from a fire (err, sorry, Austin). As I packed the car, I heard animal sounds I couldn’t quite place, and then a perfect V of Canadian geese flew overhead. It was a glorious morning. Continue reading Day 2: Corn + Trains = Nebraska →

Thanks to the lock-picking adventure from the night before, I gave myself an extra hour of sleep, waking at 6:30 Sunday morning and feeding the dog before I jumped in the car with my worldly possessions and sleepily pointed my car north on I-35. The break-in from the night before produced a permanent wind noise sound from the edges of my passenger door. So that’ll be fun to get used to.

I swung through Temple and said goodbye to Dad & family before church started, then punched it up the Lord’s Highway to Dallas, where I stopped to see Sonali and Ashis’s new baby Akhil.

After paying my respects and, oddly enough, raiding Sonali’s pantry for spices—it’s the only thing that livens up backpacking food—I drove a bit further north and waited patiently in a half-hour drive-through line just for an In-N-Out Burger. The verdict is “delicious;” maybe not worth that wait, but at least I’ve popped my In-N-Out cherry.

…That sounded grosser than I meant it to.  Continue reading Day 1: Baby, Burger, Ball of Twine. →

In my defense, I got five hours of sleep Friday night—thanks a lot, Out of Bounds, with your awesome parties.

I was up bright and early Saturday morning, packing every damn thing I need for this trip, organizing all the way down to which pocket of the backpack I was putting things in (right, left, rear, top). Made a last-minute visit to Target for some remaining checklist items—camera tripod, Altoids, needle and thread. Met a friend for some goodbye pizza. Picked up some borrowed camera gizmos from Matt. And then watched UT win its season opener in typically-sloppy fashion with some good friends. (Well, they were watching; I was packaging oatmeal and couscous and dried blueberries into individually-sized Ziplocs.)

Finally as the hour grew late, things began coming together. I weighed my entire pack and it wasn’t too far over my target weight. I asked my friends’ collective help in carting everything off the dining table and into the car—maps, toilet paper, Hardy Boys mysteries. I got the clothes I needed for Sunday out of the bag. It was time for bed. I shut the trunk lid.

…I had locked my keys in the trunk.

Really.

I had that moment of genuine intellectual confusion—wait, people don’t REALLY lock their keys in their own trunks, do they?—and then realized that against all the laws of physics and reason, yes, I’d done exactly that. There was no spare key, but there was a passel of sympathetic friends, including my buddy Dave, visiting from Tennessee. Hey guess what? In the Special Forces, Dave learned how to break into cars!

So using some improvised tools from Brent and Amalia’s garage, after 40 minutes of effort, we jimmied our way into the Neon, and I wriggled through the trunk and grabbed my keys. Crisis over.

So that put me in bed an hour ahead of time, and got me pondering whether this was the official glitch for the trip, or the first of many. Guess I was about to find out.

As I finally drifted off to sleep at 1 AM, I had one final horrific realization:

My car doesn’t have cruise control.

It’s been a hell of a year for me, and for others. And so the timing couldn’t be better for me to take a long-dreamed-of road trip to see Glacier National Park, Yellowstone, the Oregon Trail, and a dozen other beautiful parts of the Great Wide Open in the middle of the country that I’ve always wanted to see.

I first had the idea for the trip about two years ago, and it’s slowly come together since then. Bright and early on Sunday, September 4th, I’m hitting the road; I’ll return 18 days later, with around 5000 added miles on my odometer and hopefully a better sense of myself.

Click “Where’d Kevin Go?” above if you want to know more about the trip. Or watch this space to follow my preparations for it. I promise not to get eaten by a bear.