When I am weary and feeling in need of a vacation I do not have time to take, I take out the memories of particularly good ones already taken. The last month or so has been a bit taxing and revisiting this tale was just the remedy I needed to pick myself up and move on to the next thing on the list.
Several years ago, Tav and I were stealing a couple weeks in Montana, which is our favorite escape from our lives. Two whole weeks just for us. The only rule we have for our stolen trips (the ones we really can’t afford to take, but simply can’t afford not to) is that we do what we do together and that we consciously celebrate life and God’s presence in it. This particular trip, we spent a lot of time on the road, checking out places we’d never been as well as revisiting old favorites. We drove through Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons to Jackson Wyoming. There is a little Episcopal Chapel just as you cross from Yellowstone into the Tetons. The back of the altar is all glass. To look around the altar cross and see the mountains behind is truly an astounding moment. It’s like hearing God say, “Look what I did for you. Feast on my land with your eyes and you will know Me.” It’s one of the most personally spiritual places I’ve ever been. Now we always plan a stop there to sit a while and every time we feel completely uplifted and one with each other and with God when we leave.
We spent the next couple nights in Jackson, not to be confused with Jackson Hole. Jackson is the old town. Jackson Hole is the very modern made to look old ski area. We got up the next morning and hiked and explored the area. Came back and did a bit of spa action, had an early dinner and watched the stars. The next morning we headed back through the parks, but for the first time on any of our visits the Cody pass was open. A whole new park adventure for us. We drove. We stopped. We gawked. We picnicked.
I needed a break from the car. We saw a sign announcing a 2.5 mile hike to Looking Glass Lake. A good omen. A hike and water. Perfect. Tav agreed to stop and we tied on our hiking shoes. 2.5 miles is a short jaunt for us. We took nothing with us assuming we’d be back at the car in less than an hour. We saw an older couple returning from their hike, spoke to them and they said the walk was pleasant and not strenuous. Plus, they didn’t look worn out. Again, perfect. Off we went. It was a beautiful hike. A nice path to follow and lightly wooded. Cool breeze blowing. Perfect woodsy smell – clean vegetation unspoiled by man. Good-bye fanny fatigue. Well we walked and we walked. Where is this lake we asked ourselves? By this time we had clearly walked at least two miles. Uh-oh. We must have taken the wrong path somewhere. But we hike a lot and Tav has a good sense of direction. We knew which direction to head in to get back to road. We had no water, no compass, no bear bells, and no cell phone. Stupid rookie mistakes when hiking where there are wild animals. Still we knew we weren’t too far from the road. OK – we voted to continue and see where life led us.
Not fifty yards up the path we saw scat from a very large animal. Lots of scat from very large animals?? However we did not know what kind of large animals. I took the car keys out of my pocket and started jingling them. We also started singing silly songs. Surely any animal worth its salt would be running away from us. Reassured, we continued on our path. We climbed over felled logs over swiftly running creeks. Tav has an excellently embarrassing picture of me scampering across looking like I am scared to death. Which he knew I was. I am totally uncoordinated and actually turn green when looking down from on high. After crossing this particular creek, we started downhill which was a good sign and the path seemed to be heading directly to the road.
We rounded the curve and we were face to butt with a buffalo. He was less than 5 feet in front of us. We had a swift vision of the signs posted throughout the park. “Do not approach the animals”. Tav turned around and I was gone. Twenty-five feet above him standing in a big pile of deadfall. Neither of us knew I could move that fast. Tav climbed up with me. We could see the beast just standing on the path nibbling buffalo delicacies from the abundant greenery. We waited, we pondered. We saw the buffalo move just a foot or so off the path and decided to make a dash for it.
Neither of us has moved that fast since. We could hear road traffic and ran straight for it, thinking that where there was one buffalo, there was bound to be another. We left the path and scooted across what we thought was grass. No such luck. A bog. Up to our ankles in sucking, stinky muck. We finally got to the road and could see our car about 50 yards up the road. We laughed until we couldn’t breathe over our own stupidity. And thanked God for getting us out of there in one piece. We had been hiking for over 3 hours. The only damage was our shoes. Mine were absolutely black and slimy. We bagged them up and changed back into sandals and continued our ride. So longer saddle sore, but with a new tale to tell. I did finally get my shoes mostly clean and wore them several more years. Tav called them the Tatonga poop shoes until I retired them. We’ve also never hiked without the appropriate supplies again – not even for a 2.5 mile walk.
Is there a wonderful outdoors story in your past that still makes you laugh? The mental pictures I come up with every time I revisit this one still make me giggle. But I'm now ready to tackle the next sixteen items on my to-do list!
