Assaulted By Splendor

Is there such a thing as too much glory?  I (Kevin) was contemplating that question two nights ago on the way back to the hotel from a full day in Yellowstone National Park.  I was already exhausted from the day (we had put at least 500 miles on the car.  Wait... no we didn't.  It just felt like it) when we're coming over a mountain range in the northwest part of the park and were treated to this amazing Montana sunset:

Sunset, to the West towards Montana

The picture doesn't do it justice.  By this time in the day, the batteries are dead in the camera and we're falling back to the blurrycam in my iPhone.  But, man, was it spectacular.  Especially with the Gardner river in the foreground.  And not a few Elk and Bison out there too.

In fact, we drove next to a Bison for a few seconds after sundown.  (Although I prefer to call them Buffalo, since -- ahem -- that's the name for them that I grew up with).  The big guy was ambling down the highway, on the opposite side of the road.  In the dark.  Fortunately, there were plenty of cars pulling over, flashing lights and whatnot, to prevent a massive road kill.  Although, given the size of the beast, I'm not sure who the dead would have been.  He was huge -- as big as our white, rented minivan -- and (at most) 6 feet away from us.  He looked at me as we drove slowly past him.  Awesome.

Splendor.  Everywhere.  By the end of the day, it was getting to be too much.  If there is one thing about Yellowstone that I will remember it's the enormity of the place.  It's huge.  Parts of it stretch on and on to the horizon, no end in sight.  Your eyes are constantly moving and straining to gather it all in.  It's exhausting work.  And don't let the maps kid you.  Sure, it says "9 miles" to the next part of the park, but it's gonna take some serious time to cover that ground.  First, the speed limit is 45 mph max.  But then you have traffic jams to see the wildlife du jour (some of which you are the cause of), and winding roads through canyons, and overlooks that demand a stop, etc.  It. just. takes. time.  We were behind my overplanned schedule before we even got started.

Ok, there are two things I'll remember about this place.  The second is the sheer variety of landscapes.  It seems like every time you round a corner or summit a mountain, you see something new.  Some of it is familiar, if larger and grander:  a sheer cliff wall that rises for 1000 feet, for example.  Other parts are unfamiliar, other-worldly: boiling mud, hoodoos, steaming rivers.  Category breakers, all.

Alright, there will be many things that I remember about Yellowstone and the Tetons.  One is the Tetons themselves. Absolutely stunning.  No foothills.  They just shoot up out of the ground thousands of feet into the air.  There are still parts of glaciers up there.  Ancient.  I loved it.

The Tetons at a distance.

But as magical as parts of the parks are -- geysers! -- it was the "normal" parts that I fully expected to see that wound up producing unexpected emotion: rivers, waterfalls, valleys.

Ok, here is another shot with the blurrycam.  It's the Lamar Valley:


Again, the picture won't capture it.  But I could have stood for hours and just looked out there.  It was... majesty.  Yes, I've seen a valley before.  But nothing that looked like this one.  It just went on and on.  The rolling hills, the mountains in the distance, a meandering river on the valley floor surrounded by golden grassland.  And grazing bison and elk.  Surely, you think, this kind of place doesn't exist any more.

I could say the same thing about the Firehole River.  It's hard to describe the sense of anxious wonder that accompanies a violent waterfall cascading 100 feet down.  Thrilling.  I've never seen a river as beautiful and threatening as the Firehole.

The Firehole River

There is something in it all that tugs at the soul.  That's the only way to describe it.  I've felt it before but, honestly, it's been awhile.  I felt it strongly one moment as we rounded a corner in the car and I could see a clear, cold-blue river (the Madison) snaking its way though the golden grass, a bald eagle perched on a dead tree high up against a blue sky with wisps of white clouds, and mountains painted in the background.  It's one of those few moments when you truly feel "silenced."  It has about it a sense of longing - a feeling of desire, but also -- oddly -- sadness.  Like something you were made for -- but have never truly experienced -- has still, in some sense, been taken away from you.  And you want it back.

Or, just maybe, it's not something in the past I long for.  But something in the future.  I'm reminded of a C.S. Lewis quote about being made for another world.  And another quote (perhaps by Lewis, perhaps by someone else) that says that nostalgia is more about the future than the past.  The hope for a coming world; of Gospel newness and transformation.

Sounds good to me.

Ok... one more memory.  Kelly has posted a picture of it elsewhere on this blog, but it's the moment where we found a spot on a smallish stream for a family picnic.  What you don't see is that this babbling stream turns into a roaring waterfall called the Virginia Cascades downstream in a few hundred yards.  But, at this point, it's not roaring yet.  So we picnic.  And, afterwards, the kids take off to go upstream.  They play.  They try to skip rocks (the rocks are round here, not flat).  They enjoy this cool, clear stream and the tall grass and the warm sunlight and the blue sky.  I'm a little nervous; I'm watching for bears.  They take off a hundred yards away.  They're no longer close.  But they look brave to me.  I feel proud of them being together, playing together, learning, taking chances.  I'm tempted to call them back, to be safer.  I resist it.  It's not easy.

Maybe it's not a moment that translates well into a blog post.  But it's a moment that meant something to me:  what I hope is a picture of the future lives of my children. Something like this stream, maybe.  Unassuming, even hesitant childhoods moving towards something I hope is roaring and unafraid.