Today we woke up in bright spirits because it was our day off and that meant no pedaling of any sort taking place for 24 hours!! It's a necessary break because we've been riding for 10 consecutive days straight and our bodies needed a rest.
My definition of a rest day entails exploring the beautiful landscape by hiking in Yellowstone National Park (1st National Park baby!) and seeing hundreds of hot pools, geysers, and abundance of wildlife. However, Kristen had a totally different definition of a rest day! First of all I found out she really doesn't like to hike...her theory "What's the point of hiking when I could either ride my bike or run to the destination 10x faster!" I knew it was going to be difficult to convince her to come, so I didn't argue with her and we parted ways. I think the few hours a part from each other was necessary because we are constantly with each other 24 hours.
Kristen went into town to explore and find a store that offers massages or pedicures...the girly things! I'm finding out that spending so much time with the opposite sex that MEN and WOMEN are TOTALLY DIFFERENT! We have different views on hygiene, foods, ect...I just learned to accept these and not fight it.
Me on the other hand being an Natural Resources major and reading tons of books about our National Park Services, I wanted to find out first hand why Yellowstone is so majestic and worth the extraordinary effort in preserving. What better way to seek adventure then by hiking around. Since it was a rest day I didn't want to ride my bike 25 miles to a trail head that a ranger recommended to me, so I decided to hitchhike. After sticking my thumb out for over 30 minutes, I thought I wasn't going to have any luck in getting pick up, then I see a car pull off to the side of the road and it was a nice elderly couple. Coincidentally, we were both going to hike the same route! We struck up the conversation of our little biking adventure and how Kristen and I were raising money for Invisible Children. They told me they were so happy to see my generation being interested and involved with helping others so far way. This comment made me reflect on "Invisible Children's The Rescue" event which we attended in April in Denver. We were so astonished to see kids ages 18 and younger attend in masses and speak up by writing to their politicians and demanding for action in dealing with the crisis in Uganda. They told me about the years they spent in Africa doing missionary work for churches. After about a 30 minute conversation we approached the trail head and went our separate ways.
I planned on hiking Fair Tale route which is a 10 mile loop that takes you by geysers, 130 ft waterfall, and grazing meadows for buffalo and elk. Also, I was cautioned to watch out for bears...they highly encouraged me to purchase bear spray for protection, but who has $50 to spend on spray???? After hiking about 7 miles, I saw the gorgeous waterfall, walked next to Imperial Geyser (not too pleasant of a smell because the wind was blowing all the sulfur into my face), and understood why this land was so magical and necessary to preserve for our generation and future generations. It's difficult to comprehend the millions of years of history in making and shaping this vast landscape. With about 3 miles to walk to the end of the trail, I encountered a little problem. The trail went through a meadow where about 200-300 buffalo were grazing. I seriously didn't think buffalo were that dangerous because I categorized them into the Cow Family...slow and lazy. As I meandered through the buffalo (closest I came was about 6 ft from one), tried not to make any eye contact, I was almost at the end of their grazing meadow until I heard a loud snort come from the grandaddy buffalo!! I thought this isn't good, so my walking pace turned into a speed walk. I'm lucky it didn't charge at me because my assumption that these are slow animals was totally INCORRECT! They could get up to 30 mph in 10 yards!! So moral of this story is turn the other way when you see buffalo!!
That evening I met up with Kristen. She was a little worried that I might of gotten attacked by bears and she wouldn't of had a biking partner anymore haha! She had a laid back day catching up with friends, and meeting locals. She met locals named Chuck and Kevin, who were generous enough to buy us a good dinner! Thanks for the company and the meal!! Great Guys!
That is it for now
Take care,
Mark
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment