We rolled into town just a few minutes late on Wednesday, and I’ve been playing catch-up ever since. It’s easy to tell which clients don’t read my blog or Facebook; I heard from all of them while I was gone!

(note to self: work on client-only mailing list)

As always, being in Yellowstone is a spiritual thing for me, and where I left last time desperate to return, this time, I left with the quiet knowledge that I’ll be back — the same goals from all my adult trips still remain to be met — and the surety that I’m where I  belong in life right now. That, as tough as running what is essentially a freelancing service business is, it’s the exact right thing for me to be doing. So all you authors who worry I’ll give up the ship, stop. I’m in it for the long haul.

Wildlife was surprisingly scarce, but the meadows were in full bloom and the mountains were demanding and the campground was quieter than the few nights I spent under a roof. Norris remains my favorite of the geyser areas, and I think Canyon and the Lamar Valley have become my absolute favorite parts of the park.

The Old Faithful area was the most disappointing. Older amenities — we stayed in cabins near the Lodge — way too many people (especially after being the only ones on some trails), and even dinner at the famed Old Faithful Inn wasn’t as good as the dinner we’d had in the Canyon restaurant. Interesting to note that most people only know Yellowstone for Old Faithful, which is a shame. The park is so much more, so much better.

Mammoth Hot Springs seems to be drying up. That was also disappointing, although for a different reason. Yes, still too many people and after six days we’d had enough of the people who insisted on posing in front of features and parking their photographer five feet away — and getting angry when we’d walk right on through. If we waited for all those people to take their snapshots, we’d still be there. But that’s not the part that made me saddest: it was that the springs are drying up. The place has an eerie, haunted feel to it. It’s a relic of a bygone day, and that’s sad. Even the last time I was there, it was more alive than this. I mourn its loss, and you can almost feel that the place is mourning, too.

Back to those other tourists for a moment. To be honest, I don’t understand the need to take pictures of yourself in front of a feature. Oh, sure, there’s the whole “Look where I was!” bit that’s a lot of fun. No argument there. The part I don’t get is the part where your back is turned to whatever it is you’re posing in front of. That means you’re not looking at it. You’re not seeing what’s going on. Sure, you may see it when you get home and look over your pictures, but you’re not experiencing it, and if you’re not there for the experience, why are you there?

I’ve been to Yellowstone four times now. Each time, I leave with memories and spots seared into my memory. The mailbox near the outhouse at what turns out to be the entrance to the Slough Creek campground. Fountain Paint Pots. The tree at Mammoth that I have taken pictures of three times now. I don’t need pictures of me posing for me to know I’ve been there. Part of me never leaves. But just in case, here’s me. Experiencing the view. Conquering something private — and resolving to come back and finish what we started.

In a week from today, I’m heading out on my first REAL vacation in three years. Not a week at Scout camp (although that’s always a welcome break). Not a weekend adventure. A real, honest-to-God, airplane-involved vacation.

And like any good Boy Scout, I’m going to mostly be camping. In a national park.

If you are savvy enough, you’ll realize what that means… NO INTERNET.

Which means NO E-MAIL.

If you’re a client or a potential client, next week may not be a good time to reach me. Waiting until I get home on the 20th isn’t wise, either. Jet lag, exhaustion, the need to make up for lost time with my bed (and re-locate what’s come dislocated while sleeping on the ground, usually pelvis, vertebrae, and ribs)… all that’s going to play a role in how long it takes me to catch up. We are talking about someone who gets, according to Google, 1300 mails a month.

Now for the good news: If you’ve got something short — 50k words or less, or an almost-polished proofread — and want to slip it past my editorial senses before I leave, get in touch with me NOW. I’ve purposely left time open in my schedule between today and Wednesday. And I’ve refused to unpack certain things from last week’s camping adventure, making it easier to get ready for this trip. Preparations are under control. No sweat.

I’ll remind you again before I leave, of course. Spread the word. Your editor par excellence is headed out to clear her head, see bison and bear and mountain goats and bighorn sheep and moose and wolves and mountains and streams and geysers and paint pots and canyons and rivers and… Those of you who’ve been here a long time may remember the last time I headed out that way. Sadly, the pictures have been lost, but the posts are still there, buried in my archives.

Do I really need to come home? I could just stay, right? I’d be REALLY West of Mars then. No need to change the business name. I can work in that beauty and grandeur. I can do better work out there. I know it.

Just don’t ask me to do it next week.

Hard to believe it’s been three weeks since I turned off the computers and headed west. Seems a lot longer than that.

Thirteen Things from Yellowstone1. There is something about the mountains out there that really tugs at me. Heck, any mountains, even the foothills of the Appalachians that I live in. This was taken in the Lamar Valley, where a new wolf pack is trying to establish itself. They call the pack the Silver Pack. 2. Another shot from the same spot. Yes, I had a hard time concentrating on the wolves in the spotting scopes. After all, the wolves were laying around and there was all this magnificence around me. 3. The final shot from this same area. 4. This was taken on our way back from lunch, when we stopped to see what the Druid Peak Pack was up to. They were hanging out on the hillside; the two who had been playing earlier had stopped for a nap. The pack’s alpha female was wandering around, checking on everyone. A bit earlier, an interloper had shown up and a scuffle had ensued; the interloper was laying in a hollow, wounded. We don’t know how seriously. 5. This is shot from the top of the terraces at Mammoth Hot Springs. Yep, that’s a hot spring in the foreground. 6. Another one from Mammoth. 7. In the foreground is the (snow-covered) famed Minerva Terrace. In the background… mountains. 8. Yup, Mammoth. 9. And more Mammoth. See the boardwalk? Parts of it ended mysteriously where the springs have overtaken the boardwalk. But that’s another TT. 10. …and more. 11. I spent an hour in the lobby of the Mammoth Hot Springs resort with my MP3 player, watching the sun rise over the mountains. Every now and then, I’d run outside with my camera to get a shot. This is my favorite. We won’t speculate if I got it that time I was in such a rush that I jammed my arm into my coat and got outside to find… my coat was upside down. Well, at least only one arm was in it. 12. Crap. I picked this one earlier today and now I don’t remember where it’s from. I took it along the ride from Mammoth down to Canyon, over to the Lake, and off to Old Faithful. That’s the long way around, but it was worth it. 13. Same problem. And you wonder why I am ready to have copies printed and to spend the time putting the pictures into my scrapbooks?

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The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will try to link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
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Photos other than of the Yellowstone Gate in the header are Copyright 2007-2008 by Me, Susan Helene Gottfried. If you want to use them, please do so with proper citation. I’m proud of these puppies!

If you haven’t been here since my return from Yellowstone, let me recap for you:

Thirteen Things from Yellowstone 1. I’ve learned the wisdom of wool socks. I’ve vowed to only wear bamboo and wool socks from now on. We’ll see if I can accomplish this; cotton’s cheaper. But not nearly as nice.2. This guy was on the menu every night we were in the Park. Yum. (Well, okay, it was his farm-raised cousin. But you get the idea.) 3. I survived snowshoeing. This elk didn’t. Or maybe he was there as a trophy for my first snowshoeing experience. 4. This guy — we think — along with a friend welcomed me to my first snowshoeing trip. He and his friend stood forty yards apart… on opposite sides of the trail we were taking, and didn’t leave us a way around him. So the eight or so of us had to thread the bull elks. Who had big antlers that could have hurt us. Badly. 5. I put on four layers of pants and stood outside with a small group — ten or twelve of the twenty-seven of us — and watched this beautiful lady erupt for the last time in 2007. 6. This is her last daylight eruption of 2007. 7. This is her in 2008. She’s aging well, isn’t she? 8. She wasn’t the only thermal feature with things to say. 9. Daisy went off. 10. Riverside went off. 11. Castle went off. 12. Seeing all three of these — and the cross-country ski group got to Lonestar just as it erupted too — was pretty darn special. One of our three guides (who live nearby and do research in the park) said he’s been waiting years to see Castle erupt. I decided it was the Park’s way of thanking us, since we were there as part of a National Parks Conservation Association trip. 13. Yep. Saw wolves. From a distance. A great distance. I bet they knew we were there, only able to see them through our spotting scopes.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will try to link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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Photos other than of the Yellowstone Gate in the header are Copyright 2007-2008 by Me, Susan Helene Gottfried. If you want to use them, please do so with proper citation. I’m proud of these puppies!

I have to tell you guys that when the airplane door slammed shut in Bozeman and the plane was pushed back from the jetway, I almost screamed NO and jumped off the plane and called one of the amazing tour guides to come get me ’cause I wasn’t going anywhere ever again…

Believe me, it was tempting.

Pictures of the trip will follow soon, most likely as Thursday Thirteens. The Tour Manager and I took about 500, give or take the deleted ones (ahh, the pleasure of digital photography), and including my 140-some on our final day in the park.

My fiction and rock and roll take up a big part of my soul. I’ve made that abundantly clear on this blog. The other part of my soul is Yellowstone National Park. Really. I would have stayed, if I’d had the option to.

Happy New Year to all of you. May all of our dreams come true in 2008, and may I have news for you of a publication of Trevor’s Song by the end of the year, if not earlier. Keep on visiting and spreading the word about our fun here; the bigger the buzz, the more you inspire me.

Thirteen Things You Need to Know1. Yellowstone National Park became the first national park in the United States in 1872. It was signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant. 2. In 1976, my parents took me to Yellowstone. To say I fell in immediate love is to underestimate the power of the emotion the park evokes in me. 3. In 1988, 1.4 million acres of Yellowstone burned. 4. In 1998, I made a return trip with the Tour Manager. Signs of the fire were still everywhere. The Tour Manager promised we’d return in five years. 5. In 2008, the Tour Manager and I will layer up our winter gear and leave the warmth of the Old Faithful Snow Lodge to see Old Faithful’s first eruption of the new year. (yep, five years became ten. Amazing what happens when you blink.) 6. Because we’ll be spending five of our six nights in the park, we probably won’t have Internet access. Or cell phone coverage. 7. Our first morning there, we’ll go wolf spotting. 8. We’re bringing both digital cameras and the laptop, so we can upload the pictures and have empty memory cards to start each day. 9. I have learned more about long underwear than any rocker chick like me ought to learn. 10. We’re going to be surrounded by bison and yet I’m betting that all that will be on the menu is cow. 11. As a result of this, I probably won’t be able to check in while I’m gone. 12. I’d thought about having a friend post entries for me, but given what Trevor’s done around this joint in the past when I HAVE been here, I didn’t think that was wise. 13. But if I can post from Yellowstone, I will. Keep your eyes peeled, and have a terrific New Year’s.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will try to link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
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