The GeekHiker

Before I started out on my “grand adventure”, I disposed of a lot of things as part of the moving process.  Since I returned, along with job-searching and soul-searching and everything else, I’ve been on an even bigger tear to get rid of stuff.  Like so many of us, I simply have too much.

In the bottom of one box, I found an old black notebook.  It was a neat little notebook, about 3″ x 6″, with six metal rings that opened and closed and replaceable pages; the kind of thing they just don’t make anymore.  It was something my father gave me, back in my high-school years.  In it were notes from a geology class in college, scores from an old table-top game I played in high school, and the name and number of a girl in college I had the hots for.  Don’t get excited: it was only a first name, and it was a tenuous thing 20 years ago.  There wasn’t even a date.

Anyway, one of the other things I found was what could probably be considered my very first blog post, written in 1990 before “blog” was even part of the language.  Although, whether it was written on Thursday, June 28 or Friday, June 29, I can’t be sure given my “unique” date at the top.

Fri, June 28, 1990

It’s a beautiful day here in Yellowstone National Park.  True, I’m sitting in the back of a car along a row of cabins, but who cares?  It’s still sunny outside here at 4:00, and I can hear the birds chirping and the squirrels arguing.  A short distance away, I here thunder.  The storm is coming.  Not like our storms, it’s big, black, mean… and beautiful.

I love this park, its a part of me and I’m a part of it.  From lakes to rivers to waterfalls to mountains to valleys, to hot springs and geysers, this park, without a doubt, has it all.  What would not give to live out my life here.

It’s our third year straight in the park, and some say I’ve come too often.  They say I wear too many Yellowstone t-shirts.  I say I don’t care.  This place changes.  Geothermic activity is never the same each year through.  The fires did not destroy the park, as the news-media would have us believe.  It beautified it, made it more interesting to the eye.

The wildlife abounds here.  A squirrel ran up to my foot just now, found out my rubber sole doesn’t make very good eating.

Perhaps the most interesting thing is the people.  I have heard every language int he world.  The words are different, but the wonderment is the same.  Every child looks with wide-eyes at Old Faithful, the venerable old geyser to which everyone comes.

A friend of mine once wrote in a poem that it is difficult to write what is in one’s heart.  I guess she was right.  My heart is here, in this small corner of Wyoming.

While some of my friends journey to Europe or Mexico or wherever, I am satisfied to come here year after year, to see what I have seen before, and to find out what I missed the last time.  And frankly speaking, I don’t care who knows it.  I don’t repeat out of boredom or lack or originality, but out of wonder.

The thunderstorm is coming, I’m getting cold, and soon I’ll be getting wet.  Perhaps it would be a good time to close.  And when I leave the park, it will be with the knowledge that I must return.  I spent my childhood looking from the road, now its time to discover the real park: the backcountry.

So, apparently my love of nature has been around for a while.

Interestingly, while I did go back to Yellowstone (for the first time in 20 years) last year on the trip, and I have been backpacking in areas of California, I have yet to backpack in Yellowstone…