Days 4 - 8: June 4th to June 8th: “Everybody Must Get Yellowstoned”

A funny thing happened as I drove from Jackson Hole to Yellowstone – the temperature dropped. Over the course of 2 hours the temperature went from 70 to 60 to 50 to 40 degrees. Clouds rolled in, rain and mist enveloped my trusty hybrid steed. If you recall from my last post, before embarking to Yellowstone I took an awesome rafting trip in the Grand Tetons. My enthusiasm sobered as I went North and the temperatures went south. Doubt, along with the snow banks, began to grow.  My reasons for doing this whole thing, much like this paragraph, were becoming more and more unclear.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“You are totally unprepared.”

“Go home (or at least back to Jackson).”

The good thing about long drives is you can hit an absolute low and you still have time to turn things around.  It can be a matter of a turn of a wheel or popping in the right music. You've got time to remember why you're doing crazy things like this in the first place. There are great things in this world. You just need to actually leave your home balcony and comfy sweatpants and slippers in order to experience them. Also, it's important to remember that you can bring those sweatpants and slippers.

So I put on some good music and, somehow, started to get excited in spite of everything. And hand to god – it stopped raining!  By the time I got to my campsite it was sunny and in the mid 40's. Not as good as the 70's and sunny – but I'll take it.

The term Yellowstoned has nothing to do with any drug.  I've witnessed presumably rational people do stupid, dangerous things while traveling throughout Yellowstone.  And I was not immune to this state of mind, this the shock and overwhelming feeling when you first come to Yellowstone.