"Down The Rabbit Hole..."

A week has just passed since I left Australia.
It feels like it went so fast, but I also feel like I've been gone forever... We've packed a fair bit in over the past week, so I'll do my best to touch on the most important experiences.

We landed in L.A on Sunday morning, after a 14 hour plane ride. As we stepped out of the subway onto Hollywood Boulevard, I felt myself, and Brooke next to me shrink to the size of ants. It was huge. Huge, loud and hollow.
The walking man on the traffic lights is white instead of our green, and that pretty much sums up the way I see L.A- all the nature and life sucked out of it, with only the outer, transient shell remaining. It sure was interesting, but not a place I want to return to any time soon.
L.A and I did not get on, out personalities do not gel!
So we saw the sites, the Chinese Theatre, the Walk of Fame... all that jazz. But it wasn't satisfying, and I was happy when we got on the bus on Monday night to head up to Wyoming.

What followed was an EPIC bus ride to Jackson. 23.45 Monday-4.30 Tuesday was the ride to Las Vegas, 7.30 Tuesday-17.10 Tuesday was the trip up to Salt Lake City, 18.15-22.45 we were heading over to Idaho Falls, and then 6.30 Wednesday we set off for Jackson, Wyoming, where we arrived at 8.30. On the bus we saw the Nevada desert which crackled out for an eternity; as we made our way into Utah, the desert mountains grew a soft green down on their tips and their crannies; and as we came through Idaho the landscape suddenly got cooler and deeper, like a dried out sponge that had been dipped in icy water.

When we stepped off the bus in Wyoming, I felt a physical sense of relief, and of belonging. It's SO beautiful here. The land is perfect and dazzling, and the air carries in it an acceptance and trust. I feel like I'm where I'm meant to be, like I'm looked after, safe and warm. Wyoming feels like a big bear hug (although, maybe I'm jinxing myself mentioning bear hugs in a place like this...).

So, we're staying in Teton Village, nearly half an hour from Jackson. It's lovely there, even if it is very touristy. The entire economy around here is pretty much based on tourism, because the land isn't all that agriculturally friendly. Teton Village is also a resort town, so we're surrounded pretty much by middle-aged rich people who've come out to get their photo in front of Old Faithful or the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. I sound jaded, but I'm not. It's perfectly lovely, and everyone is very friendly.

Anyway, here are some of the things we've gotten up to:

We caught a lift to the top of one of the mountains behind our village. Brooke was petrified, but she trooped through like a champion. It was foggy and overcast that day, so for a portion of the 12 minute lift trip, we were completely surrounded by white, and for all we knew, we were just sitting there in a vibrating cabin. But then we came up over the clouds and into the sun- it was so beautiful. One of the children in the cabin said "It looks like a bowl of icecream!", and it did, a bowl of icecream with majestic mountains tucked into its folds. So, there we were, at the top of a mountain, snow and ice in summer, the world below us, moutains all around us. I can't quite describe how it made me feel, but it was perfect.
Then- we hiked down it. 12 kilometres, it took us three hours- but we sure did take our time.
As we came down, the landscape changed from rock, snow and ice to a lucious green, perfect and vibrant little flowers, mountain streams... what a place I'm in! It's pretty dang special!

We went on a little walk one afternoon. It was perfectly sunny, until a wind hissed up really, just out of nowhere, and it started pissing down hail stones the size of peas. We had to make it back to out hostel in this... the wind was like walking against a sheet of cast iron being pushed against us, and the hail was like a million needles being stabbed into my legs. I had bruises all over me!
It was pretty exciting. I got a little jazzed actually. I never would have gone out in that at home, and logically so I guess, but it made me feel... human... to have nature sucker-punch me a little.

The other night, we were off to the rodeo! I made Brooke wear matching 'cowboy' shirts with me, it was so damn cool! It certainly was an experience. Everything anyone ever said a rodeo was, it pretty much is. A whole lot of cowboys, doing cowboy-ey things. I was glad to have seen it. I have throw a bit of a wet blanket over the whole thing, and say I was a little upset about the animal side of things. Picking calves up and throwing them at the ground to tie their feet- kicking the horses and the bulls in the butts to rile them up so they'll buck harder, and all for the entertainment of what was ostensibly a bunch of tourists... it's not really ok. What was satisfying to me was that I could go there, and I could see that, and I could feel in my gut that I knew it was wrong... I have a strong opinion about something that is based on actual, practical experience of the world and the things that happen in it, and I'm not just spouting other people's words when I express an idea or an opinion.
Also, the cowboys were damn cool, and there was one particularly sexy one who rode that bull like... I don't even know like what, but I wanted him to build us a house to live in! Maybe he'd retire from bull-kicking if he had a woman to build a house for... sigh...

Yesterday, we went to Yellowstone National Park. We had wanted to explore it on our own, but America was just not designed in favour of people without their own car, and Wyoming even more so. Our only option to see the park, was to pay about $150 for a guided tour. I wasn't all that big on the idea of having this experience to a schedule based around getting a quick snap of yourself in front of as many sites as possible, which is what it essentially was. So, even though it was not idea, the fact is that without a car we would not have seen anything, and I got so very, very much out of my trip to Yellowtone, and the incredible things I saw there, even if I was being herded back onto a bus before I could totally melt into a place.
Wyoming is incredibly diverse in it's landscape. There are these massive, sweeping prairies, and sloping deep-green hills; there are huge and stark rocky mountains with snow and ice draped over them... and then there are places like those in Yellowstone. It's like another planet. Hot springs that shoot massive pillars of water and steam into the sky, pits of churning, boiling mud, pools of torquiose coloured water that lets of this sky-blue and baby-pink steam and are edged with this brilliant orange stone, waterfalls that rage with a strength I've never seen before and canyons made of stone that look like someone's spilled their pastel container all over the place. And then there are praries again, and still, crystal lakes, and pastures that are so green you feel like you've never seen green before.
Yesterday we saw moose, elk, a massive bull elk, deer, bison and at the end of the day, we totally saw a bear!! It was pretty special.
While I was in Yellowstone, and it's true too for the rest of the Wyoming landscape, I feel almost like I'm standing in my own heart, like all the things I've ever felt, they're here in this place, made into stone and grass and trees. It's like I've found this place where I can see, touch, smell and taste in the air my own soul. Ok... I'm sounding a little corny, but it really is AMAZING here.
I'll definately come back here one day, and that's what made me feel better about sitting on that tour bus, on which, as we pulled into Old Faithful Geyser, the tour guide actually SAID "the tallest part of the plume is in the first 25 seconds, so just get your photo of that and come right back over into the bus"... oh my... I also cannot BELIEVE just how many people there were there, in that park. Seriously, thousands upon thousands of tourists and their cameras. I felt a little dirt being one of them.
When I come back, I'll go out on the trails and camp where the people aren't, and it will be wonderful!

So I've been rambling a little about stuff that's maybe a little boring to people who aren't me! We've had a couple of funny little moments, but I don't know if any are worth relaying. People are friendly for the most part... they like us to mention that we're on a trip, so they can tell us all about their own trips, and all the places they've been! A guy in a bakery gave us a free sticky-bun, a guy in a supermarket gave us discounts on our food even though we didn't have the 'special discount card'... lots of people tell us how 'brave' we are and how 'lucky' we are, and the latter is something I am certainly feeling a lot. I'll never have a chance like this EVER again in my life, to do whatever I want within the world, with nothing holding me back except myself. And I'm going to make the most of it.

I miss home a lot. It is hard. There have been a couple of nights lying in the hostel room where ALL I've wanted was to be in my loungeroom with my family around me. It's lonely not having the people you love right there to hug you and talk to you. But it's for all of them that I have to make sure I have the best time I can! Because I don't want to waste it, I don't want to be away from them for a big fat nothing.

So, I've never written a blog before. There was my first attempt. I don't know how it went... but there you have it.

I miss everyone... so very much. I'm also having a ball, and I wish with all my might that I could share it with you all... because when you love someone, you want to share the special things with them!

Ok... I'm signing off now... I'll write again most likely from New York City, where we are headed in three days...


Goodbye, from Jackson Wyoming!!

Mad.