Yellowstone

In the summer of 2003 Victoria and I took the kids on a cross-country road trip. The highlight of the trip was our 3 days spent in Yellowstone National Park. Even though we just stayed in an overly crowded campground with hundreds of other campers, I cannot wait to go back again. This is one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited. I thought this Bison was really funny for some reason. He just kept looking at me like he was going to say, "Hey bud could you hand me the remote please? I've been waiting for hours to change the channel but I'm too lazy to get up."

I recently read Lost in My Own Backyard by Tim Cahill. Ever since I read "The Clown Owls Bitter Legacy", a satirical essay about the failure of the Woodsy the Owl anti-littering campaign, I have loved Cahill's work and sense of humor. Lost in My Own Backyard did not disappoint me. Cahill confesses that in his younger years he'd have been ashamed to admit that he enjoyed seeing Yellowstone by car, yet he had to admit that this was the best way to see many parts of the park. At the end of the book he does venture into the back country. So this book had some appeal both to the family man in me who enjoys the convienience of seeing the wilderness by car as well as the part of me that refuses to grow up and still wants to go traipsing through the woods. I'd recommend this book to anyone who has been to Yellowstone, anyone who hasn't been but wants to, and to those who don't think that they need to go to Yellowstone.