Theodore Roosevelt was a legendary skeptic of modern art, and also preserver of one of the most vast and beautiful places I have ever seen: Yellowstone.
When I read his essay about the 1913 Armory Show -- modern art's introduction to America -- in which he said "the lunatic fringe was fully in evidence" and compared Marcel Duchamp's now iconic Nude Descending a Staircase, no. 2, unfavorably to a Navajo rug in his own bathroom, I had no idea that he had laid eyes on such a spectacular landscape.
(Inscription says "for the benefit and enjoyment of the people")
What a good thing that they set that land aside. Maybe, as a local pointed out to me, he just wanted the land to hunt on, but I loved everything I saw.
Yellowstone is in the very northwest corner of Wyoming, bridging over to a southern part of Montana. My friend Emma who is also a writer, though on a more universally interesting topic than art museums (i.e., sex, see The Big Bang, by Em and Lo), had said when they went on a book tour they accidentally visited Gardiner and loved it.
I called ahead and Anna Holloway at the local bookstore,
Tumbleweed Bookstore and Cafe, graciously offered to host a Museum Legs, What Would Leonardo Do talk in the shop.
From Coeur d'Alene, I headed toward Missoula, Montana, through evergreens and snowy mountain passes and undulating roads and runaway truck ramps, and a vast, curvy-edged lake I never quite photographed.
Side note on the state-by-state mood of law enforcement: Now into the Libertarian hotbeds of Idaho and Montana, I passed a sign that said ‘Litter and it will hurt.' Somehow very Second Amendment. Re Libertarianism, I hardly saw two Montana license plates that were alike, very freedom of choice.
In Missoula,
I stopped by Butterfly Herbs,
a charming shop and home to the first espresso machine in the state of Montana.
On the way out of town, I passed Senator Max Bacchus' office, a quaint cross between a Cape house and a New Haven shop, reminding me about non-proportional representation in states like Montana that have extremely low population density.
The landscape is pretty majestic. Big sky country, more rolling hills than Arkansas so you can see a lot further. Pale gray purple clouds that are layed on top of light blue sky and that same rolling hills of wheat-colored butter yellow that looks underpainted. Grain silos. The whole shebang. I wish I could paint it.
Here is some local color on the drive over, a stop at the Silver Dollar roadside shop:
Where you can buy
Across the highway is an espresso hut, a wintery outpost of the coffee huts so popular in the Pacific Northwest:
It's in the middle of the landscape, nothing else around.
(view in the other direction)
Here is my new eastbound car, California plates.
Arriving in Gardiner late, I had wanted to stay somewhere local, which meant the one non-chain motel.
Here it is pictured in daylight:
I checked in and found the flimsiest door lock I have ever seen on any motel -- a doorknob with a push button lock, nothing else. A couple of hours later, someone started rattling aggressively with the door, trying to get in. I was about to call a nearby inn, Chico Hot Springs, to see if they had a reservation for the next night. They had a cancellation that night too and I bolted. I am sure it was fine, that maybe someone who was staying next door got home late from the bar, a bit drunk and mistaken, but I didn't want to wait to find out. Here is some local color from the pizza place I had dinner:
Chico is a family establishment, a sprawling inn in the Dirty Dancing sense.
With these sorts of photographs in the hallway,
and this nicely cloistered-feeling view from my room:
The sort of place you get this "stag--grand piano" proximity:
And where an area that looks like this also has high speed Internet access:
I woke up the next morning to someone jangling with a doorknob, but it was a two year old, and it was my neighbor's door.
Chico sits atop hot springs, with two huge pools outside.
It's possible to borrow a spare swimsuit in the Pool Grille (they run them through the same industrial laundry as sheets and towels), and to see live country music in the bar just off the pools.
This band had really good energy and was fun to watch.
I don't know why I found this t-shirt so funny.
The drive from Chico down to Gardiner is beautiful, the Yellowstone homestretch.
I returned to the Gardiner motel to hand in keys and take pictures of the view from the room, far more spectacular than the room itself:
Then I headed into the park. Here is the view of Gardiner from the park:
Yellowstone was closed the week I was there, so you could only drive across the north road from Gardiner to Cooke City,
where I saw: a wonderfully repurposed golf cart with all-wheel drive, a near 1-to-1 ratio of cars, to cars in which the passenger seat was occupied by a dog, a gas station that sells as much camping and outdoor gear as the grocery store in Harrisburg, Arkansas at the peak of hunting season,
and a fantastic log cabin deli-motel called Buns 'n Beds.
I had a long chat with the proprietor who was in a self-professed foul mood because the Steelers had just lost, and also not played very well.
(He was charming and funny, of the "May I take your picture? Sure, if you don't mind breaking your camera" school.)
On the road through the park, I wanted to see a bear, which didn't happen, but saw a lot of bison instead. Bison are such improbable animals.
Their heads look *carpeted* and the fronts of their bodies are so much heavier it looks implausible that they stand up.
(These observations are more idle to make before one reads the Yellowstone newsletter that warns bison weigh 2000 pounds, will charge you, and run up to 30 miles per hour.)
I am sorry to say after all of Anna's hard work at the bookstore laying out a wonderful food spread and inviting lots of people that the Gardiner reading was the one no-show of the tour.
I did happen to check my phone while I was there and received an incongruous art-world email.
She and I chatted a while--I had become obsessed with bears and bear maulings while in the park and wanted to hear local stories. Then I bought the last Harry Potter book headed back to Chico to head for Denver the next day.
postscript: The Yellowstone education center is the first place I have ever had it suggested I go hiking by myself.
Him: "It's a short trail, just make lots of noise in case there are a few bears still out looking for something to eat."
Me: "Make noise. . . do you mean, like, sing?"
Him: (not inspiring confidence) "Er, . . . sure."
On this kind of trip you have to act as if you will never pass this way again but, even still, I decided to hike next time.
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