Beaker Chronicles

It's late at night and I've got four pages of assorted travel musings saved on the little portable word processor we keep in the car, but I'm too lazy to run down there, get it, and figure out how to transfer it to the laptop, so those things will have to wait, just like my post about kayaking Puget Sound with W. and A.

Now for a quick update. It's October 3, and we're in Rockford, Illinois. We drove through Minnesota and Wisconsin today, weathering the most vicious thunderstorm I have ever seen. We crashed here and watched TV all night, savoring the feeling of being dry and not cooped in the interior of a Honda Civic carrying all our worldly belongings.

We have seen Yellowstone National Park, Mount Rushmore, the Crazy Horse Monument and Badlands National Park. We will write about these things--or transfer all the word-processed files--shortly. For now, here are some teaser images of Yellowstone.


The bacterial plate at one of the park's many thermal pools.



Big bull elk doesn't realize pedestrians are supposed to walk on the LEFT side of the road.



Bison! These woolly bastards were everywhere we wanted to be. Like the middle of the road out of the park at nightfall.



Old Faithful. We waited a very serene 25 minutes with about a hundred other people for the eruption. It was impressive.




The view as we left the park. Behold the full justification behind all the cliches of America's scenic splendor.