Grant Village Campground, Yellowstone Nat’l Park, WY

Right away I knew this was going to be a great day. Being the holder of the National Parks Federal Recreational Lands Pass, I slid by the poor jamokes who were sitting in their vehicles in long lines to pay entrance to Yellowstone and went to the special Pass Holders booth.

Sidebar: Anyone out there 62 or older should buy the Pass. For a one-time fee of $12 the bearer gets lifetime free entrance to all parks, recreational areas, etc. owned by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Forest Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and Bureau of Reclamation. For you youngsters out there, hook up with a card holder before visiting any of the above facilities—the Pass allows the bearer to bring in a carload of people free.

The second good sign was that just after passing through the West entrance, I found a bungee cord lying on the roadside. Since my biking pants had popped their waist clasp this morning, I stretched it around my waist and peddled on with no fear of dropping drawers.

About 10 miles in the traffic stopped. I slid alongside on the shoulder to see what was holding things up. A bison. It was on the opposite side of the road but right there at the base of the road cut. Just eating. I stopped and took a picture and then looked to my right across a meadow. An even bigger bison was walking straight at me. I squatted down and took a couple of pictures. He crossed a stream, and continued through the meadow until he was less than 20 yards from me. Slowly I took down the flapping flag attached to my trailer, not knowing what might agitate a bison. He clambered up the embankment about 10 yards ahead of me and appeared to be about to joint his mate when he changed his mind. He went back down the embankment and grazed parallel to the road.

I can’t think of many other animals whose physical presence can only be interpreted as power. The low-hanging head, massive shoulders and virtually no neck with a bull-like rear for speed do not sends a message of friendliness. Yet, bison are very docile, I’m told. While they can run three times faster than a human they seldom do, at least in Yellowstone. They have a good life.

The massive fire of 1988 did its biggest damage in West Yellowstone, destroying hundreds of thousands of acres of forest. It is evident in the dead trunks of millions of lodge pole pines that stand as ash-gray toothpicks or lie on the forest floor like some giant’s game of Pick-Up-Sticks. New pines have taken root but at 15 feet they are but infants to their soaring parents and grandparents elsewhere in the park.

Further on white smoke poured from low cone structures in a large treeless area. I had come upon the Lower Geyser Basin. The Middle and Upper were to come. A path led to geysers, mud pots, hot springs and fumaroles. The smell of sulfur filled the air. Fumaroles hissed carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide. Mud pots bubbled, blurped and belched like a thick pudding. The clear deep azure of a hot spring invited one to dive in but at 400 degrees that wouldn’t be wise.

Yellowstone is home to 60 percent of the world’s geysers. That’s the primary reason it was established as the world’s first national park in 1872. It has more than 10,000 thermal features because it sits upon a huge underground volcano. The biggest eruption I saw today was Old Faithful, which isn’t. No one can predict the old guy anymore; eruption intervals vary daily and yearly. Case in point: Hundreds of people gathered to watch the predicted eruption at 4:51 p.m. today. When 5:08 and still no eruption, people did several passes of the wave for entertainment. Old Faithful must have gotten the message, he blew his watery top at 5:10 and settle down by 5:13 p.m.