A Letter to Washington

Over the course of this most current government shutdown, I've had the great pleasure of "meeting" a handful of passionate people in my fellow YNP gateway community of Cody, WY as well as getting to know a few neighbors right here in Gardiner a little bit better. Some of us may have differing political views and lifestyle ideas, but I've learned this week that at the end of the day our end goal is often the same - we are Americans, want to be proud to be so, and are frustrated by the feeling that this inalienable right is being taken from us one piece at a time. One of these new friends, Rick Satterthwaite of Cody, has been instrumental in the Protest for Yellowstone movement that is gaining steam in our area and penned the below letter to the elected officials of the United States government. Not to The House, The Senate or the Executive Branch, but to ALL of them. Whether you are left, right, moderate or out in the stands, Rick's letter is likely to ring true in more ways than you might think.

October 2013

To the 537 leaders of the United States of America: The President, The Vice President, The House of Representatives, and The Senate:

We are tired; We the People….we are tired. The weariness that is overtaking us feels like an invisible force wrapped around each one of us individually, and yet all of us collectively at the same time. It is the feeling that something familiar…something we trust…has begun to weigh us down, tug at us and pull us apart, to look us in the eye with assurance, while wrestling with us at every turn. Wrestling, not as two playmates might; but as an adversary. That adversary is you, 537 men and women we look to as leaders, as familiar, trustworthy leaders.
We were a small group in the wilderness, just in front of the gates of Yellowstone National Park. What brought us there was the desire to gain access to our friend, our park. However, what became obvious as We The People began to look around was much greater than Yellowstone; if one could imagine that. No, what was obvious was our weariness over you and your inability to lead on behalf of us.

From where We The People stood that day, in the wilderness, what we saw were men and women, 547 of you, fighting for yourselves, for your own agendas, your own power, your own egos…never truly thinking of We the People. We hear talk of not wanting to give the Republicans too much…not wanting to give the Democrats too much, never thinking that We The People are Republicans and Democrats, independents and libertarians. What we hear is that our democrat leaders do not want to give half of We The People too much. Our republican leaders do not want to give half of We The People too much. We are so weary of that!

John Kennedy once said, “Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.” What happened to ideas like that? What happened to you as servants of We The people that it has to be a democrat or republican answer. Do you 537 not realize that those answers exclude half of We the People? Do you not realize it is making We The People weary? You lead us from one crisis to another; one cliff to another. You have become experts at pitting We The People against ourselves in order to give some portion of the 537 a victory, all the while making We The People more tired…more weary.

No, as that small portion of We The People gathered at the gates of Yellowstone, what we realized is that it is your inability to lead that has made We The People weary. Please stop! We are tired of fighting among ourselves; fighting in the way you 537 do…how you 537 lead We The People. Stop looking for the republican answer. Stop looking for the democrat answer. Look for the right answer. Look for the answer that will relieve the weariness of We The People.

Many of us, We The People, echo the prayer of Admiral Black last week when he asked you 537 men and women to come to grips with the shame you have caused in this great nation. Your behavior is selfish and shameful to We The People and we simply ask you to stop, look inward, and examine yourselves. Find a way to get beyond your party affiliation and dogmatic policy stances and look at us, We The People. Look from a position of humility, not power. Look from a position of weakness, not strength. Join us at Yellowstone’s gates and see We The People, not a voting-block, or district, or constituency. No, try to see us, weary as we are and understand that we deserve better than what you 537 are giving us. Stop tugging at us, stop pulling us apart, stop doing all the things we try to teach our children not to do and lead.

As We The People gather at the gates of Yellowstone, we were denied entrance because you 537 men and women shut down the government, our government. We stood there as you were huddled in Washington DC. Here is a thought from We The People that just might help you understand just how We The People are feeling right now. Do your jobs and fund the government. Do what you have to do to get past this latest crisis. Then shut it down again! Shut down every office, every hall, and every meeting room and come to Yellowstone. Come to the farmland of the Midwest. Come to the sprawling cities of the eastern seaboard. Come to the oil patches of the west and southwest. Come to the great forests of the Pacific North West. Come to We The People and just sit with us.

But do not go to your own districts, your own constituencies. Go where you are not familiar and sit with someone you have never sat with. Don’t take cameras and media people, just put on your jeans and come alone. How can you lead all of We The People if you have only sat with half of We The People? Imagine that! None of you 537 being lobbied, arguing your point, pitting half of us against the other half. Just take the fall and early winter off to sit with We The People and get to know us. The reconvene after the holidays and lead us together in the right way; the American way. What do you say? Meet us at the gates of Yellowstone and let us just sit together as We The People.

Rick, you are a true credit to the people of the mountain West.

Just Another Day In Paradise...Or Several - Summer 2012 in Review

With the computer out of commission and my patience entirely too small to blog via iPhone, I hadn't realized how long it has been since I've written anything!

It was another interesting summer, as usual, with crazy things happening in the Park, in town and in general. But thankfully the priority to make sure there is time for fun has still been given it's proper space, in part due to the fact that I seem to have forgotten that I had not used a good majority of my vacation time, which resets for the year on the anniversary date of when I started working full time, which is the end of August. Thus, I ended up with many long weekends in July and August. In fact, I'm pretty sure I didn't work a full week from mid-July until Labor Day weekend, darn it!. I suggested that this had worked out very well and that I might just plan on using my vacation days this way next summer, but that idea was quickly shot down by everyone else in the office who have been answering my phone during my seemingly endless string of long weekends. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted!

Here's a quick photo summary so far, with a little commentary thrown in for good measure.......

It was ENTIRELY too hot last summer! While it definitely can get a little toasty in Gardiner and Mammoth during the summer, this picture can explain the difference this year as it was taken on June 23. On that same date last year, we were cheering because summer had finally shown up at all and the high was about 80......

 Sunset over central Yellowstone, near Gibbon Falls

 

Gibbon Falls sunset looking the other direction 

Bannack ghost town in SW Montana - it was the first territorial capitol of MT and has been preserved 

and restored as a State Park.

 

Ibex cabin in somewhat south central Montana - a great weekend with 4 people, 2 hyper dogs and a whole lot of board and lawn games, aka the "Ibex Olympics"

 

 

View towards Yankee Jim Canyon from Old Yellowstone Trail north of Gardiner, MT

 

Music in the Mountains

One thing that I always miss by living in such a small and out of the way place is live music. Sure, Bozeman has some and Billings has some, Missoula has a good bit etc etc, but those are 90 minutes on the short side and 5 hours on the long...each way.

However, what we lack in quantity we can definitely make up for at least a bit in quality of venues. Enter, Grand Targhee.

Grand Targhee is a small ski resort on the western slope of the Grand Tetons - little know but with ridiculous snow and scenery(over 800 inches this year, if I'm not mistaken....). In the summer they host concerts and music festivals such as Targhee Fest and the Targhee Bluegrass Festival. This year they also upped the line-up to a 3-day Widespread Panic show over July 4th weekend, which of course was a must-wander for me and a small group of 10-12 friends and the tent-mahal(hold your hat, I promise I'll explain...)

Any music weekend at Targhee is not complete without the camping, located anywhere from 100-500 yards from the music venue. In the past I have only midly experienced this, as I hadn't ever been able to do a full weekend down there before. Well, I learned this year, and learned big! The camping areas are basically large meadows and tree filled areas where you cruise in, get your little plastic bracelet that no one will ever check again and then make the mad, bumpy dash towards the best dry spot near shade you can find, all while the dazed and confused Targhee parking staff wave their arms around and try to at least keep lanes visible through the meadows(no offense to them, they did a great job....I just think it was a much bigger job than they expected and knew what to do with when it hit!). Once landed, you secure your area as best you can by circling the vehicles, staking out tents and picking the most tactical location for the all-wonderful shade tent. This was an especially important detail this year, as remember that earlier mention of 800 inches of snow this winter? Well, a good deal of it is still there, and where there is shade, there will be snow and mud because that great shade that keeps the sun off us also keeps it off the ground.....Behold, the tent-mahal(see? you didn't need to worry after all).

The tent-mahal(thank you Rebecca for the pic and amazing name, by the way), also referred to as the tunnel of love, was the great collaboration that came about with the realization that between the 10 of us camping together we had 4 shade tents that could all match up to each others sides relatively well. After 3.5 days of 80+ degrees in a meadow, I may never go festival camping without at least 4 of these wonderful creations ever again.

While camping is of course an integral part of the Targhee weekend, the music is still phenomenal and in an exceptional place. Most festivals are a collection of bands throughout the day, with folks wandering back and forth between camp and venue, seeing who they want to see and then hitting nap etc. With a show like this though, it's every night at 6pm like a normal concert, which lends to the fun mass exodus from camp, line to get in the gate, and then a huge, crazy and enthusiastic crowd to dance around with for the next 4 hours. This was no exception, and so exhilerating. In fine fashion, the entire weekend opened with thousands of people dancing and singing as they fittingling opened with "Aint Life Grand" and the fun continued all the way up to the 3rd to last song of Sunday night where we may have all gone a little insane singing about the "Surprise Valley". Yeah, they played another song and a good encore that night as well, but my rousing finish was with that one.

Now, one more day of this terrible three-day work week before it's the weekend again....now to rouse some energy to do anything.

Weekend Wanderings

A few weeks ago I discovered an iPhone app called Trover that kind of reminds me a "photo" Twitter. You sign in, post photos of your "discoveries"(anything cool or interesting that you'd like to share) and it posts in a running feed. You map and name the location, as well as provide a brief description of why the discovery is "cool", for each photo, which allows other users to see where you took the photo and what it is. This also allows you to seach Discoveries by what is nearby - either nearby to you, or to another discovery you found interesting. This little app has led me to a new goal of the summer(since I have failed miserably at many of my 2011 goals and challenges so far, lol!). Enter, the Weekend Wanderings of Summer 2011.

I have lived in this area off and on since 2002, and thought that I knew it pretty well and had done a good many things. Definitely not the case, as Trover has taught me in the past few weeks! So far, I have discovered enough new places to see and things to do that, combined with my other already set plans this summer, may definitely be enough to leave not a free weekend to be found!

These first photos are the beginnng of the Weekend Wanderings, though not to new places....



Grand Tetons behind (still frozen) Jackson Lake - Grand Teton National Park May 2011

The bottom of Colter Pass as a storm rolls in - Chief Joseph Highway, Wyoming - May 2011



Buffalo Bill's Historic Irma Hotel - Cody, Wyoming - May 2011



Pioneer School near the Wyoming-Montana border on Hwy 120 - This was a new discovery that I just saw a small sign for on the side of the highway! May 2011

The first of the new explorations, less than 2 hours from my house along a very scenic drive!
Natural Bridge Falls - Gallatin National Forest, Montana - June 2011

The weekend wandering to Natural Bridge falls also included the fun of a borrowed pup(a friend was out of town so pupsitting was also involved!) as wel as a fabulous dinner at the Grand Hotel in Big Timber, MT - was expecting to grab so bar grub on the way home and ended up with an AMAZING meal!!

Next weekend, Lewis and Clark Caverns :)