(written on the 30th and 1st from notes)
I’m tired. 🙃
And I’m debating… Do I finish this journal entry tonight and make progress toward getting back to the ideal I once had of never putting head to pillow until I’d written my journal for the day?
Or do I go to bed, because I’m exhausted, and just do it tomorrow, because it’s more important to get sleep now?
🤔
I’ll I guess we’ll see. I’m going to keep writing for the moment, and we’ll see how far I get. 🙃
It’s been a long but beautiful day. The portion of my trip starting in Logan Canyon through probably about an hour east of Grand Teton National Park has felt very much like New Zealand–not because it looks the same for the climate is the same, no, it doesn’t look the same, and the climate isn’t the same, the fourths are different, and the mountains are different, but it’s still absolutely beautiful. 😊
I was treated to a visually stunning feast today, and I’m grateful. 🙏¹
The day began quite early, as I think I was up right about sunrise (but undisturbed! 🙏²).
The drive back down toward Jackson was steep, 10% grade, and I’m grateful that I have the ability to downshift. 🙏³
Instead of entering Grand Teton National Park at the southern entrance like I did with my mom on our last Great Western Road Trip in 2024, I decided to take a wider birth. I started closer (taking a left onto Spring Gulch Road), but then, instead of entering via the Moose entrance on the south end of the park, I swung wide, hopping on Highway 191 to get a view of the Tetons from a little further away.
I don’t think I’d ever seen them from further away at that particular angle, so it was nice to be able to have that option. 🙏⁴
I took some pictures here and there and also found out that Yellowstone, from the southern entrance where I was, was closed. 😕
I did see some natural hot springs on the map that I could enjoy, so I plugged those into my map as a destination for later in the day.
It wasn’t too long before I badly needed the bathroom, but Micro John, after being cleaned, went to a recycling center in New Zealand, and Little John isn’t set back up yet. 🙃
Gratefully, Schwabachers Landing had a long drop, and it was only 10 minutes away. 🙏⁵
Is it just getting older, or diet, or… something else… that makes it so when you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go?
😆
I was also pleasantly surprised to find recycling bins next to the long drop, which allowed me to get rid of some of the recyclable trash that I’ve picked up, as well as some of my own trash. 🙏⁶
It was also a beautiful place to stop and stare for a bit. 😊
I entered the park through the eastern entrance, the Moran entrance, using my National Parks Pass that expires today. 🙃
I’m grateful to have thought about it and noticed that I still had time left before it expired, which further encouraged me in my visit to this beautiful area of the country. 🙏⁷
I feel pretty lucky to have been able to be at the park today, sun shining, only a very few clouds around the mountains, and perhaps most exciting, a great stillness in the air. 🙏⁸
The above pictures were taken at Oxbow Bend on the Snake River. The below, incredibly, at Jackson Lake. It’s wondrous to me that such a big lake could be that still.
😁
🙏⁹
I tried to take a video in that same spot (where I took the last picture there), but my phone gave me the warning that I didn’t have enough space left and needed to free up space in order to take a video.
So I quickly started deleting apps and clearing app data and cash until I had enough space, but by the time I had done so, a breeze had picked up, and the clear reflection was lost in the ripples.
Oh well. It was pretty awesome while it lasted. 😊
Not too far down the road, as I was going over a bridge, there were perhaps a dozen or more people hanging out on the bridge staring off into the marshy vegetation below.
Not wanting to miss seeing whatever was there, I pulled over and caught a glimpse of this little guy meandering through the stubby shrubs. I managed to snap a handful of pictures before it lay down in the middle of the shrubs.
Then, only a couple of minutes further up the road, another small group of people was out lining the road, this time with the same park rangers who, as I was walking away from the bridge where I saw the last little guy, had asked me what I was seeing down there.
This little guy was a little more dangerous than the last one, though both are quite dangerous if you get too close. 😅
I’m grateful for people with keen eyes. 😊🙏¹⁰
I hung out chatting with the people wandering up and down the side of the road with their mega cameras trying to get whatever glimpse they could of the little lady.
They think she’s probably 2 or 3 years old and hanging out in this area of the park to stay away from the bigger ones. Apparently, she’d been right in this area by the road for the last three days.
Anyway, I headed out on my way North toward the hot springs that marked on my map, only to find that when I was trying to free up space and cleared the data in my Google app, apparently, it wiped out the cache that it had made of the map of the area.
Which meant, since I didn’t have any reception, I couldn’t see any roads, let alone locations that I had saved on the map. 😅
I kept driving that direction anyway, as I remembered enough of what I had seen before I cleared the app’s data, that I thought I might be able to find the place.
I also hoped that perhaps I might get a little bit of reception, but I was heading further and further into the wilderness instead of closer to civilization. Since I haven’t restarted my Starlink subscription, I couldn’t rely on that either.
By the time I got to where I was going, which I did recognize from the map, I wasn’t 100% sure where I needed to go, but after seeing the wildlife that I’ve seen recently, I figured it was probably best not to go to the hot springs alone, despite the safety resources at my disposal.
So I turned back around, stopping off one more time to see if the last not-so-little critter was closer or in better view, but she wasn’t.
I also made a second attempt at viewing of the first little critter, and was much more successful. At first, I wasn’t. I didn’t see it at all, but after making some noise, I spotted it further away.
I snapped a handful of pictures, and then as I was walking back to my van, I noticed that the ridge next to the road went out toward where the little critter was going, so I wandered up the ridge, and then along the other side of it, finding myself pretty close to the eyes looking back at me.
Hey snap some more pictures as I drove back out of the park and then again as I headed east.
I was actually surprised to see how beautiful the landscape was in the first hour or so of heading east away from the park. I stopped many times to take pictures. 🙃
Part of me didn’t really feel like I’d left New Zealand. Sure, the landscape was different. The trees were different, but from the point in time where I left Alpine until probably an hour east of Grand Teton National Park, it was just beautiful. 🙏¹¹
And then an hour later, I was in the barrenness of central Wyoming. 😆
My nerves were giving me a whole lot of grief, so the drive was pretty rough. Gratefully, I have cruise control and can “stand” drive a little bit (pushing my feet against the footrest and floor and pressing my body against the back of my seat, so my butt doesn’t have to press down against the seat itself.
Though tiring for my legs, it does provide at least a measure of relief. 🙏¹²
I decided that I wanted to swing by Devil’s Tower. The last time I had been there was in 2010 when I took my impromptu month-long road trip back East, so I headed that direction, passing through the outskirts of Casper and then heading north.
Supposedly, according to Google, the gas station about 60 mi north of Casper was selling gas for something like $3.76 a gallon, but when I got there, it was $4.11.
Oh well. I still made it there without running out of gas, and $4.11 was still cheaper than the other places, I think.
I was happy to find that my fuel economy, despite all the stopping I did while leaving my engine running, was just a hair below 16 MPG. 🙏¹³
I was driving super slowly on the highway, probably between 55 and 65 mph most of the time, so that probably helped a fair bit. 🙃
Of course, the super good fuel economy could also simply be an illusion. It might just be that particular station’s pump cut off early, and I’ll have super low fuel economy the next time, but for now, I’ll take it as a happy win. 😊
In another happy win, though there weren’t any spots on freecampsites.net near Devil’s Tower (the nearest ones were either far too soon/in civilization or would require backtracking), at pretty much the perfect time, I saw a sign for a freeway-side parking area (the same kind I used to sleep at on my trips to the Casper Temple each Tuesday). 🎉🙏¹⁴
So I pulled over, ready to give my body some good sleep after last night’s lack of good sleep.
Not too long after I pulled over, Cory called, and we traded sharing things we were grateful for.
That was nice. 😊
Speaking of which, I’m grateful that whatever switch got flipped a couple of Sundays ago, my last Sunday in New Zealand, has left me with much zero interest in wasting my time away in front of TV and movies.
I’ve even found myself only slightly curious with Sports news.
Crazy… three weeks ago, I was consuming those kinds of things as an easily accessible escape, and now… I don’t really feel that need to escape.
Does that mean the challenges I was running from are gone?
Nope.
Things are just… different within me, and I’m very grateful. 🙏¹⁵
And in that same vein, I’m starting to feel that hunger to become again–to take every opportunity I have and can manufacture to realize the one of my two deepest desires that is under my complete control and that I have available to me pretty much all day every day.
Bring it on. 💪
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 