Friday, September 13, 2013

Adventures In Yellowstone Part 1

Planning family events with my husband's family is not always easy. For some reason we all cannot just show up to event. There has to be discussion and meticulous planning. Usually in email form. For almost every event there is an email about almost every aspect of the event plus some very unnecessary tangents. Long tangents. If the family emails for an event like Thanksgiving were printed out and piled up, I am fairly certain they would reach the moon.
 
But every once in a while everyone gets into a spontaneous mood. Why this happens, one can speculate. But like other rare occurrences it is hard to study. On of our grandest spontaneous adventures was a trip to Yellowstone a few Septembers ago. I think because the summer was winding down and we were all feeling the dread of school nearing spontaneity was practically our middle names. One night in August we were camping around the fire talking and roasting marshmallows. Like ya do. And someone brought up how cool it would be to go to Yellowstone National Park.  
 
Two weeks later we, like the mad spontaneous people we were, ALL piled into my in-laws bus converted to RV and hit the road.
14 people. One bus. Spontaneous or crazy? We drove for many hours straight past Multnomah Falls and the boondocks to optimize our time in Yellowstone. Which for the drivers is terrible but since there are beds in the back that we sleep in while driving and a gameboy, the passengers have a blast. Crowded, but fun. This one of a kind bus is an old Portland transportation vehicle that runs on veggie oil. Which is pretty sweet considering how much we saved on gas. However, it does draw attention and we do get pulled over a lot. It still has a ton of roses on it because Portland is the city of roses. Add the french-fry smell that comes out the back and everyone either takes pictures shamelessly, thinks we are hippies or assumes we are an outdated party bus.     
We finally arrived at Yellowstone. I was so excited to show the siblings all the wildlife, the views, and the volcanic activity. As we drove in I had high hopes for this trip.
However, 14 people just could not synchronize their bladders. We seriously stopped at every bathroom the first couple of days. Every single one. If you need a guide to the bathrooms in Yellowstone, I got you covered. The irritating thing was the I was sure we were missing most of the wildlife viewing in these very frequent stops. I perhaps am exaggerating. Maybe. But it was pretty bad.  
We drove through the plains and stopped at a bathroom.  
  Looking at bison? Nope. Bathroom stop.
What's that? Wolves at a fresh kill? Don't see them. We are going to the bathroom.
 Big horn sheep? Bah! Bathroom break. 
 Old Faithful? Can't look at it until we have ALL gone to the bathroom. 

 This was the start of a mini. meltdown for me. I had never seen so many people have to use the bathroom so many times in such a small amount of time. 
 I don't remember how far into the trip we were, but it was far enough that bathroom breaks were at a record high We drove from our campsite into the Grand Tetons. The plan was to stop somewhere along the way and make breakfast. Unfortunately that took too long and I became hangry (when you become so hungry that your lack of food causes you to become angry, frustrated or both). We stopped at Jackson Lake in the Grand Tetons to finally have breakfast. Some of the siblings, amazingly not hangry, ran down to the lake's shore. Trying to un-hangry myself and distract from how long cooking might take, I decided to join them.
 And that is when I spotted them. A perfect pair of Trumpeter swans. 
I have always wanted to see Trumpeter swans in the wild. As a kid I read an absurd amount of National Geographic magazines and one I hung onto and read often had a section about these beautiful birds. They mate for life. How cute is that? I think they are the perfect picture of dedication and love. 
 I was even more enamored after spotting them. There they were! Together. Forever. Adorableness and stuff. 
 I am not sure how long I stared into the lake off in "swanlalaland" but what brought me back in a panic was my realization that my siblings had not spotted the swans!
I felt it was my duty to let them know because at the current moment they were making enough noise to scare off anything within a ten-mile radius.  But they were more excited about frogs. 
Yep. Frogs. I could not comprehend this and kept shushing them in desperation. 
But it was too late. 
The swans, too graceful for frog catching and general noisy atmospheres, took off. 

 That was the last straw. No food. No sleep. No swans. Things were just about to get ugly. 

I exploded. Nothing clever came out. Nor even scalding. The worst thing my rage came up with at the moment was calling them...country bumpkins. I know. Spare them. Right? But my general manner must have had some effect. 
 In their momentary quiet from my outburst I dove into lecturing them on the merits of swans and the commonness of frogs. And how we would never see another pair of swans in our lifetime because they are so rare. 

They came to the logical conclusion that I had lost it or really needed breakfast and continued their activities. 
I finally got some breakfast in me and we traveled to Jackson Hole,Wyoming. 
We, of course, stopped at the visitors center which had this great upper level deck to view the large marsh in the valley. And that is when we spotted two more Trumpeter swans. Feeling still quite indignant, I was convinced it was the same pair trying to find some peace in the marsh. I, thinking this would validate my rant hours earlier, asked the nearest park staff how the swan population was doing. Much to my embarrassment she pointed out that swans have been doing well and actually not that rare. Apparently there are like 500 living in the Grand Teton area alone. 



Needless to say it was a little humbling. 

At least my siblings-in-laws are gracious people. Although, I still get teased sometimes when I am hungry that they need to be careful or I will pull out the old, "country bumpkins".