finding a home, part the first

Day 3. I looked at the atlas that morning, and I thought, okay. I can spend another 6-8 hours in the car and drive all the way from Billings to Glacier, have a day there, and a three-day drive back... OR I can drive 4-5 hours from here to Yellowstone and have 2 days there, and only 2.5 days to drive back.... hm. God, would it be alright? And what I felt from the Lord in that moment was pretty much something along the lines of, "Hap, I don't really care where we are. This is about you and me being together. Yellowstone is fine. Let's go."

So I went to Yellowstone National Park. I took the interstate a ways across Montana, stopped in the last "big" town for gas and coffee just in case - and hit the back roads towards Yellowstone. The drive in was stunning -I got stopped for construction but actually enjoyed it, as I was in a pretty spot overlooking a river that you could actually hear if you listened over the construction noises. And there were any number of what you could actually call "vistas" and not be the slightest bit cheesy... And then there was the Park itself.

Lol... the first thing I noticed is that there are an extraordinary number of bison in Yellowstone National Park. It actually became laughable by the end of the trip, how many completely unconcerned bison there are in the world...

I stopped and hiked the Norris Geyser basin. That was fun. It was so good to be out of the car!!! Unfortunately not all my pictures turned out very well... but there are a few things I remember distinctly from that bit of my trip:


1) a jackrabbit (it was enormous) bounding thru the brush on the side of the trail that totally freaked me out (because i was alone and because of the bison and the new possibility that it might (because of my current location) be a bear... ("ooo, see the bunnies" has new connotations now...lol)

2) wildflowers growing at the edges of extremely hot pools of water - what incredible tenacity in the midst of such barrenness! (i want to be like that... which, oddly enough, reminds me of one of my favorite songs, and when i went just now to read the lyrics, they totally floored me... but... well, that's a whole different post someday, i think!)

3) what happened at the Steamboat geyser...

I stopped and read the sign at the Steamboat Geyser - all the usual educational whatnot. The geyser is very sporadic - mostly issues steam, with occasional bursts of water, not much over 5-10 feet usually.... it wasn't doing much. I didn't really expect it to. But I said in my heart to the Lord, "Gee, God, it would be really cool if it went off while I was here," and then I headed down the steps to see where the boardwalk led next. Where it led was to a platform with an even better view of the geyser, and God said, "I could show off for you a little bit. Hang out for a second." So I paused on the platform and watched - and it totally blew. It was so cool... I don't know - call me crazy, but I think that conversation actually happened. And it was such a sweet moment. To be so loved by the God of the Universe that He actually blew off a little steam to impress me... (it worked). :) I felt so ... ridiculously cherished ... just then. It was fun. Me and Jesus, hiking through the wilderness, thinking about plate tectonics and everything under the earth's surface shifting and moving, the heat of the earth's core... it was a place where beauty and barrenness clashed, and the truth of God's Word about creation groaning was evident.

and someday, it will all be made new... someday, we'll be home - and we'll live on the earth as it was always meant to be... i wonder what it will really be like...

Jon Birch has a post up that sparked some conversation on this very subject...