Yellowstone Expedition – Post 5

Now that I’m back I can start gathering my thoughts and describe various natural history facets of my trek.  But I think I’ll start with the adventure that is flying back and forth to this crazy corner of Wyoming (with just little slivers of Montana and Idaho added because of rounding errors on the map.

On the trip out the most memorable event was the taxi ride to the airport.  Instead of picking me up at 4:30 as they recommended, I got a call at 3 am stating the driver was outside waiting for me.  Luckily, I was up and packed but what I wasn’t ready for was my driver.  She was very old, very obese and she wanted to tell me her story.

She volunteered that she had had a driving accident a year ago and this was her first ride since recovering.  She also told me that at night she couldn’t see the road because of the lights of the oncoming drivers.  And to demonstrate the truth of this statement she several times wandered onto the rumble strip when there was oncoming traffic.  Then she told me about her drug dealer neighbor and her abusive bosses who want her to drive faster.  And finally, she told me about her cancer.  When we finally pulled up to the airport, I gave her a good tip and fled her cab like my life depended on it.

The rest of the outgoing journey was uneventful.  But on the way home things got interesting.  From Bozeman to Denver everything went smoothly.  I even managed to have a very nice Reuben sandwich plate in Denver.  And when I was ensconced in my window seat with no one in the middle seat I thought my flight home would be relaxing and comfortable.  Ah, foolish me.  As our departure time approached a thunder storm engulfed the airport and stowing baggage had to be postponed until the lightning subsided.  When the plane was ready to take off twenty minutes later, we were behind six planes on the tarmac.  By the time we took off we were thirty-five minutes behind schedule.

It turned out the row behind me in the back of the plane was occupied by a single father and his two sons, Mal and Max.  I’d guess their ages as four and six.  The six-year-old, Max, was sitting behind me and he early demonstrated that kicking the back of my seat with both feet was something he needed to do.  His father begged him endlessly to stop kicking it but the boy responded by going into hysterics.  Finally, I told the father to switch seats with his son so the son could kick the back of the empty seat next to me.  This worked but it couldn’t prevent me from having to listen to the endless screeching from both boys demanding that they be allowed to leave the plane.  Somewhere over Kansas or Missouri I contemplated how I could help them fulfill this wish.  But eventually I rejected the idea and spent the rest of the flight contemplating which of my earlier crimes was being atoned for by my proximity to these howling lunatics.

As we travelled along our flight path, we were constantly surrounded by a line of thunderstorms that buffeted the plane.  Somewhere in the Midwest we took a detour to escape these storms and this caused our arrival time to slip further.  And finally, before landing the captain came on the radio to inform us that the long runway was unavailable to us so we would be making a screeching halt on the short runway.  And he wasn’t kidding.  The plane hit the ground and skittered around the runway like a jitterbug.  Inevitably the terror twins behind me were inspired to even louder ululations of outrage at their imminent demise.  But as we bounced to a stop, I smiled knowing it would all soon be over.  How wrong I was.

The captain came on the intercom again and in a jovial manner explained that we had been given a different gate but that there already was a plane at that gate and we would have to wait about twenty minutes to use it.  This twenty-minute delay and the time it took for the rest of the passengers to exit the plane in front of us sparked a performance from Mal and Max that can only be equated with some passages from Dante’s Inferno.  I’m surprised none of the stewardesses administered a tranquillizer dart from across the cabin but toward the end I would have welcomed a bullet in my direction just to distract me.  Finally, as the moment approached, I turned around and told the father of the M & M boys to leave ahead of me.  He thanked me and I assured him no thanks were necessary.  I left the plane last.  I wanted as much space between me and those whirling dervishes as I could arrange.  The last I saw the two of them were attempting to push their poor bedeviled father down an escalator.

So here I was at 12:30 am, about an hour after my scheduled arrival.  I gathered up my luggage and headed for the taxi stand.  By some miracle the taxi was still there and the driver wasn’t the poor pathetic woman who had driven me out.  She had made it seem that she was the only driver on the night shift and I was dreading the suicide run she was fully capable of providing.  Instead, it was a younger guy who drove with considerable skill and speed and I was home in record time.  I gave him an even handsomer tip and was greeted by Camera Girl with marked warmth even considering the fact that I badly needed a shower.

So, there is my tale of woe.  Now that I’ve recovered from the trip it almost seems silly to let things like these bother me.  But at the time I had dark thoughts about the way the universe was being organized.  In the next post I’ll limit myself to a photo exposition of Yellowstone natural history.