A Present in the Park One Should Never Unwrap

After visiting more relatives in Montana, I decide to head to Yellowstone National Park. This is what I know about Yellowstone before I get there:

+ It presents my best chance at spotting a moose since leaving British Colombia.

+ Yogi Bear's Jellystone Park was loosely based on Yellowstone. Though I venture to guess that the pic-a-nic basket prevalence was greatly exaggerated in the cartoon. Also, most bears at Yellowstone do not wear hats and ties and speak in a comical manner. Unfortunately.

+ There was a documentary that came out about supervolcanoes that claimed all of Yellowstone sits on one giant volcano that could erupt at any time, killing everyone in its vicinity and covering the United States with ash.

I tell this to three different people in one week and all of them know about it, which leads me to believe it is one of those facts that everybody thinks is impressive until they realize that everybody over the age of seven knows it too. You know, like the Daddy long-legs spider being the most poisonous spider on the planet but too small-fanged to bite humans (which coincidentally is an urban legend) or that men who live in their van have abnormally high IQs (completely accurate).

The supervolcano thing starts getting a little more frightening as I survey geyser after geyser. All you ever hear about is Old Faithful, but the lower part of the park is covered with volcanic pools and steaming geysers. Most of them smell like sulfur, but their visual awesomeness trumps that dilemma for most spectators.





Steam floats throughout Yellowstone, giving the park a creepy prehistoric vibe. Ravens frequent the landscape and I soon spot a fox off in the distance. These wildlife encounters are interesting, but I want to see something big. Something dangerous. Something like the giant elk attacking a man on the Yellowstone newspaper I'm given at the park entrance.

Apparently, it's mating season for elks and "both sexes are more likely to charge you or your car at this time." This disturbs me. Not so much the charging part, but rather the elk's intentions when it reaches me. Needless to say, I do not plan on dropping any elk soap during my stay.

It turns out, elks are not the animal I should be concerned with. About thirty miles into the park, I come across a car stopped on the side of the road. About thirty feet away from the car sits a giant bison, just chilling in the grass.

My immediate instinct is to get out of the van and take up-close snapshots of the bison. Before I do so, the following things cross my mind:

+ The video game "Street Fighter." It's a popular game revolving around giant mutants and men beating the crap out of each other. The main bad guy? M. Bison. They wouldn't name the boss after an animal that isn't prone to aggression. You know, unless they would.

+ This excerpt from the Yellowstone newspaper: Bison are unpredictable and dangerous; they weigh up to 2,000 pounds and sprint 30 miles per hour.

That's significantly faster than Martin "Van" Buren's top-end speed.

+ A picture I took next to the geysers in a moment of sophomoric weakness.

Mind you, the zoom function was not needed for this picture.

After careful consideration of the facts, I decide to stay in the van at the appropriate distance, living to blog another day.

Check in tomorrow for more about my voyage through Yellowstone, including more wildlife and a trip to Old Faithful.

And not including anymore pictures of giant feces.

That's a projectmeaning.com promise.