Chapter Six: Yellowstone

A word about campgrounds. Prior to this moment, I had thought there were only two kinds of campgrounds—those that are well kept up, like Sand Creek, the beautifully quiet and peaceful campground in Beulah; and run-down dumps like that campground in New Jersey where the F__K you family screamed at each other all night and the whole place was covered with mud puddles. Today, I discovered a third: The Rip-off campground, something I had never seen before, exemplified by the Yellowstone Valley Inn, whose sole purpose seems to be to separate the traveler from his money.

As you know, I picked campgrounds back in May which belonged to Passport America. These are usually half price and make things really inexpensive for the camper. I picked the YVI from the Passport America catalog, with the understanding that only two nights of the three would have the PA discount, which was not valid on a holiday (July 4). When we pulled in, I was told that the campground was filled up and although I still had the reservation they were not honoring any discounts. Take it or leave it.

A couple in front of me were upset that their cheesy Good Sam 10% discount wasn’t being honored, either, and looked for another place. I think it was extremely rotten of the YVI to do that.

Something else? Well, they have full hookups, but apparently I didn’t get one of those. We have to use the dump station. That’s an extra five dollars! They have a padlock on the dump station in case anyone wants to use it without paying, even after paying $28 a night to stay here. Freddy had the best idea—we should just dump our crap on top of the locked dump hole. Imagine if we all did that? We could just line up and make a big, green, stinking shitpile on top of their damned padlock! I suppose we’d all get arrested, but it is a glorious dream.

Here is one thing I can do: The Yellowstone Valley Inn is a ripoff; The Yellowstone Valley Inn is a ripoff; The Yellowstone Valley Inn is a ripoff; The Yellowstone Valley Inn is a ripoff; The Yellowstone Valley Inn is a ripoff; The Yellowstone Valley Inn is a ripoff; The Yellowstone Valley Inn is a ripoff; The Yellowstone Valley Inn is a ripoff; The Yellowstone Valley Inn is a ripoff; The Yellowstone Valley Inn is a ripoff; The Yellowstone Valley Inn is a ripoff; The Yellowstone Valley Inn is a ripoff; The Yellowstone Valley Inn is a ripoff; The Yellowstone Valley Inn is a ripoff; The Yellowstone Valley Inn is a ripoff; The Yellowstone Valley Inn is a ripoff; The Yellowstone Valley Inn is a ripoff; The Yellowstone Valley Inn is a ripoff; The Yellowstone Valley Inn is a ripoff. (Mentioning it that many times will make this page come up on Google so anyone who wants to Google the YVI will soon learn what a ripoff this campground is.)

Here are Crystal and Freddy at Old Faithful. Things have changed a lot in Yellowstone. When I first visited there in 1967, Old Faithful erupted every hour. Today, it erupts roughly every hour and a half.

Remember the bears? Yellowstone used to have bears all over the road. They visited every car. Here’s a picture I took in 1967:

Sorry it’s so blurry, but you have to remember that I was laughing my head off while my wife was desperately trying to crank the window closed by hand, as the bear cub was reaching into the car for cookies.

Today, the bears are all hiding. Roads are covered with bison. When you enter the park, instead of warning you about bears, they tell you people have been gored by Buffalo. DON’T APPROACH THE BUFFALO.

Actually, this one did freak and kick up its heels when some asshole touched his back. People ran all over the place as it climbed up over the boardwalk.

As long as I’ve been an adult (assuming that I could be characterized as such even now at the age of 61), the annual National Park Pass has cost $50.00. This is no longer true. Under the pretext of adding admission to Federal Recreation lands, the annual entrance fee has been raised to $80 a year. And next year, when I’m 62, instead of the pass being free, as it’s always been, I will have to pay a one time fee of $10.

Why the raise? Does it mean someone in the damned Bush administration has cut back funding for the National Park System? Why not? They cut funding everywhere else. Some of you may remember that a few years back, I was earning two thousand a week writing study guides for films that the government made available for free to the hearing impaired. Then, after Bush was elected, funds were cut for that program and I lost that job. Obviously to the Bush administration, it’s far more important to send young Americans to die in Iraq in the great oil theft than it is to educate the handicapped. For that matter, all education is less important than Iraq. I agree with Senator Obama, who recently called the “No Child Left Behind Act” the most empty slogan in history. Keep them uneducated, and they will believe Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the propagandists.

Speaking of Rush Limbaugh reminds me of another important change at Yellowstone: the condition of its public toilets. They were almost all latrines. For anyone unfamiliar with the term “latrine,” let me explain that a latrine is a big hole in the ground. If you are lucky, a reasonably clean toilet seat is mounted over the hole. There is no flushing involved. Paper is provided, but the excrement stays in the hole, until it is pumped out. It attracts flies and usually smells so bad that you can find it from half a mile away.

If you read last year’s report of our travels, you might remember how repulsed Crystal was upon her first confrontation with a state park toilet in Alabama, I think. She’s a big movie fan, and I think she found her first latrine more horrible than watching Rory Calhoun selling human flesh in Motel Hell.

But this year, things are different. The science of Public Latrines has now been raised to a major art form.

I think I mentioned that the out houses in Sand Creek Campground were clean, sanitary, and sweet smelling. When I visited one of those plastic outhouses at Boondocks, it, too, although very hot, was without the vile smell of week old excrement. And at Yellowstone, the same thing was true! How nice that we can use out houses without fear.

How well I remember in 1967, traveling along Route 66 somewhere in the southwest when my wife needed a bathroom desperately. We stopped at a gas station and as I filled up, she asked to use the restroom. The mechanic (in those days gas stations were run by mechanics) gestured to a small dirt path through the woods to a place somewhere downwind of the station, which my wife ingenuously followed. Soon she arrived at a clearing where she could dimly see an outhouse door through a huge swarm of flies that turned the air brown, air that was already permeated with the gamey scent of urine and fecal matter of all kinds through which no human, no matter how desperate, could pass. I suggested she relieve herself in the nearby woods, but the shock of seeing her first real outhouse had just scared the shit out of her.

Progress is a wonderful thing.

Our first day at Yellowstone was pretty disappointing for Diane, whose crutches kept her from seeing much of the park, as everything required hiking. The most fun she had was watching the buffalo freak out after that Latino kid touched it. On the second day, though, we rented a wheelchair and she had a much better time. Note to travelers: National Parks often have clinics where wheelchairs can be rented for the small sum of $10 a day. This is not usually advertised, but it is something important to remember.

Despite the many changes Yellowstone National Park has undergone over the years and the sadness of the many areas so filled with dead trees destroyed by fire, one thing that can never change is the shear beauty of the park—no matter where you chose to point your camera, you will find color, shadow, and just plain beauty.

Back at the campground, a guy from New Jersey named Big Mike was hosting Karaoke at the bar. You know me. There wasn’t many people there, but I had a good time singing “Jailhouse Rock” and then, luckily hitting every note right in “True Love Ways,” and feeling like a real crooner for a moment. The evening was interrupted by two idiots from Georgia who kept using vulgar language in front of two children and several women. It just ruined the night, so we left, but not before their awful singing befouled the air in the bar.

They were amazing. One guy, who said he was almost a professional skate boarder but he drank too much to succeed, wore a tight fighting red tee shirt and jeans that were way too small for him, skinny as he was. His pants ended about twelve inches above his shoes and it looked like even his white socks were too tight. The other guy looked like one of those guys in the TV commercials who have been wasted since 1962. He sang a Bob Dylan song and tried to dance in the whitest way I’ve ever seen anyone dance. Through his haze of alcohol and drugs, he thought he was cool, I guess.

The next night was the 4^th of July. Freddy said lots of people complained about these idiots using poor language in front of a lot more kids while they played with fireworks.

Everyone knows I am no prude about using language—guess just reading this is enough to tell you that, but there’s a big difference between the written word and the spoken word and it is a shame that words which used to be effective modes of communication have now become the adjectives of morons who never learned any other words.

And while we’re on the subject of idiots, I guess I deserve a nomination, too. The next day, as we drove south through Wyoming, I let my gas get kind of low and when we arrived in the town of Meeteetsi (which sound like the opposite of the Grand Tetons), I drove all the way around the block to get into an oddly shaped gas station and got stuck. If I pulled forward, the car we were towing would crash into a steel bar by the pumps. Our trailer has an automatic brake and you’re not supposed to drive it in reverse.

I plugged in the stick that releases the brake and tried to direct Freddy while he backed up the trailer, but no matter what I told him to do, the situation got worse. Finally, we tried to disconnect the trailer and roll the car backwards, so we could get out of the situation. Unfortunately, it was pretty heavy moving the trailer with the car still on it.

A group of bikers had been watching us from across the street. I guess they took pity on the white haired old man who didn’t know how to drive his RV, because before we knew it, they were pushing the car and getting it into position to reconnect to the RV. I went around the corner again and lined it up, with their help, and we were soon on our way. What a great bunch of guys. I couldn’t thank them enough.

I had wanted to get to Colorado that night, but we had just gotten too late a start and I was tired. Maybe these time zones have left me with a little jet lag. We ended up spending the night at Mountain View Campground in Wheatland, Wyoming. It was an ordinary campground, but what made it extraordinary was the Latino gentleman who managed it. He was friendly and courteous, helped us park, offered all kinds of suggestions for things we might do in town, even lent us a TV cable when he saw me having a hard time finding the one we had brought with us.

And the campground had a full hookup—water, 50 amps electric, and only the second sewer connection we had had since the trip began. We could shower and relax, big time. We also got to watch TV and saw the news. That lousy president commuted Scooter Libby’s jail term!

Chapter Seven