What are ya? Yellow?

by Robison Wells



You probably didn't notice, but I didn't post last week. I didn't even write a little post announcing that I wasn't going to post. The reason: because I'm a man of mystery. Also, if I posted every week then you'd come to expect it, and then rely on it, and then, in the winter when I'm not here, you'd starve like a tourist-fed squirrel.

The other reason that I didn't post last week is because I'd just returned home from a family reunion at Yellowstone National Park, and I smelled like smoke and unshowered body odor. I assumed that you wouldn't want anything to do with me.

Yellowstone is one of my favorite places on earth. It's also probably the one place I fear more than any other. In this sense, it's not unlike the Sonic Green Chile Cheeseburger: I love it more than life itself, but it always makes me want to puke when I'm done.

My fear of Yellowstone is derived from my childhood. In an attempt to keep me alive, my parents very graphically described how quickly and unpleasantly I would die if I ever stepped off the boardwalk. "You see that hole?" they'd say, pointing to a small sinkhole near a geyser. "That's where some kid stepped off the trail AND BROKE THROUGH THE CRUST AND DIED!" Then they'd point to sign that look like the following, and I'd discover that Yellowstone safety was not another fairy tale of goblins who kidnap disobedient children. This was real.



I must admit that I've done my utmost to carry on this tradition with my children. My two-year-old, Sammy, who'd try to lick a buffalo's horn if we let go of him, is strapped tightly into his stroller. My five-year-old, Holly, holds onto my hand--well, I hold onto her hand, and squeeze it like a vice.



I remember well driving through the national park as a kid and having my mom read tidbits of history to us: how the early explorers found places where they could just set their frying pans on a rock, and the ground itself would cook their breakfast. Or when we stopped at the Norris Geyser basin, and the boardwalk was blocked with yellow caution tape--one of the geysers had exploded. Not shot water in the air like a regular geyser, but exploded, showering the area with great big rocks and superheated water. Yellowstone is a dang freaky place.

My wife, on the other hand, is generally more scared by the supernatural, but there's lots at Yellowstone to frighten her, too. About five years ago we stayed at the hotel in Mammoth, and the interior looks EXACTLY like the Overlook Hotel of The Shining fame. She still has nightmares.

Her fears were somewhat exacerbated when I had to leave a day early to get back to the LDSBA convention. She tells me that she spent that night, lying awake, her knuckles white as she gripped the flashlight (which she never turned off) and she kept the broom next to her sleeping bag, ready to ruthlessly swat hungry bears and demons.

Fortunately, no one died. No one even got injured that I can remember. And then, driving home late at night all by myself, I was within fifteen miles of home when a deer ran out in front of my car and I slammed on the brakes--stopping only three feet from him. What a waste, I thought. At least at Yellowstone I could have died in some interesting way, in an interesting place. When I go, I want death by explosion.