snowbirdredux

From the time we “closed the deal” and made the commitment to create a new life on Mt. Faith until the time we actually arrived,  encompassed nine months!  How’s that for perfect symbolism?  And the whole process was truly so very much like a birth of sorts.  I definitely felt morning sickness at times.  And great elation and expectation at others.  I kept repeating the phrase from Stephen Sondheim’s “Into the Woods” and feeling utterly at times just like Little Red Riding Hood who declared that she was “excited AND scared”.  That has been ME from day one of the gestation period until the arrival, these nine months later, at Mt. Faith.

The “getting here” was a sometimes stressful and often wondrous process. Just like birth.  It was up, it was down, it was frankly at times, more than I could compute.   We deliberated, we planned, we re-designed and imagined without full knowledge of what we really had or were going to experience once the new life began.  Or rather, I did.  Robert it seems has been full steam and assured from the get-go.

We fully intended to make it a once-in-a-lifetime vacation once the due date arrived, but in the end, some inner homing instinct pushed us on with greater speed than we had intended.  And yet, that didn’t hamper the glorious sights along the road and what will remain memorable hits and misses.

Here is our photo journal to fill in the visual story of our journey.

Tsuda Cafe and Bakery - Auburn, California

Gold Country, Gateway to the Sierras - Auburn, California

Over the Sierra Nevadas in May?

Sierra Sky

Nevada never disappointed

Casino - Elko, Nevada, across from our motel

Yankee Doodle Cafe - Alpine, Wyoming

The Grand Tetons from a distance

Our "alternate route" OVER the Tetons!

A chilly Yellowstone with Old Faithful only puffing!

Herd of buffalo (with baby) meandering along the highway

Big Boys passing the car

1950's motel - Gardiner, Montana - with Marine Corp. Flag

Yellowstone Mine Cafe, Montana

Fabulous Quartz wall - Yellowstone Mine Cafe

Closeup

And finally the highlight of our journey – the Painted Canyon at the Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota.  Take my word.  GO THERE!

The best of Mother Earth!

JOURNEY COMPLETE.

First I must say that to add insult to injury,  the Comfort Inn, which was anything but, provided a gazillion ants that darted out from one crack in the bathroom floor just as soon as Cosmo began his dinner. So HIS dinner was substandard too.  And they installed an elephant above us who  proceeded to clomp back and forth, every footfall accented as in an Irish dance frenzy, and he must have been in practice mode, for he kept it up seemingly for hours.

But on to Day Four.  Not wanting to chance another culinary mishap, we decided to drive as quickly as possible for the Wyoming border and on to  Jackson, the Tetons, and Yellowstone and  that was fortunate because we did finally have an excellent breakfast in Alpine at the Yankee Doodle Cafe, which was decorated appropriately, as were it’s proprietors – she with a flag adorned jacket, he with similar tattoos.  It was here, however, that we discovered that all the signs pointing to the turnoff for Jackson, Wyoming were blatantly false, as a massive mudslide had closed the road a whole week before.  At this point, unless we veered to the south which would take us far out of the way of the final destination,  there was nothing to be done but turn around and drive back into Idaho, retracing our steps for about 30 miles , and then onto an “alternate route” over a steep and twisty snow-surrounded road which snaked OVER  the Grand Tetons.  Needless to say, the views were grand indeed and it did bring us down, 70 plus miles later, right into Jackson Hole.  Cosmo was not amused with this detour, however, and grand old sport that he had been so far, erupted into whiny, noxious protestations.

Yellowstone is a place that everyone should experience at least once. And it is so vast that there are most likely more places to explore than could be done in a lifetime.  It turns out that “almost June” in Yellowstone is more like the dead of winter in Big Bear California, and we did try to stick around for Old Faithful’s eruption with a small band of shivering diehards and I did so want to take that bubbling geyser loop where Noelle took so many photos in the early 70’s, but our California winter coats proved inadequate and even the properly winter-clad walkers returning to the Old Faithful Inn were muttering “brrr”.

“Brr?”  How does that particular exclamation happen to mean “I’m freezing?”  Shouldn’t it be “Frz”, or even “OMG”!  “Brr!”  We need to practice for Minnesota.  And definitely get proper winter coats.

But the Tetons and Yellowstone are most definitely worth further explorations.  And I have to announce that the buffalo are alive and well within the park.  In fact they stopped our car three times as they meandered in small herds down the roadway.  Once with a baby in tow.

Day Four ends at a classic 50’s motel, the kind you rarely see anymore, with a real key for the door and a Yellow Lab Greeter in Gardiner, Montana.  Onward.