Walk in Beauty

Just a “few” pictures from Raoul Tawel ‘s and my trip to Yellowstone National Park and Grand Tetons National Park. If you have been to them — you know. If you haven’t, get there by all means, by any means. I now call Yellowstone: “Where Creator Most Enjoyed Playing with Stuff” and I call Grand Tetons: “Where Creator Rested and Still Goes Sometimes for a Break from Everything Humans Get Up To”.

Beauty and delight. Wonder and awe. Lots of climbing and hiking and gazing. A bit of a real scare with a bison. A wonderful boat trip down the Snake River. And a great companion and fellow traveler. We have wanted to do this trip for ages. Now I can’t wait to do it again.

Some of my best lessons from the trip include:
1. “Be like an otter. Enjoy life. Have fun. It’s great to be alive.” (also, probably “fish. good” haha)
2. Try harder (wherever I go) to: “Leave only footprints. Take only memories.”
3. If you wonder how God and Evolution work together, go to Yellowstone National Park.
4. It’s great to have someone to explore with. On one of our hikes when we found ourselves alone in the woods, we were told to keep together and to keep talking so the bears would hear us, so with hearts beating, we took turns talking so the bears would know we were humans (just in case they might think we were lunch). I entertained the quiet woods with the poem “Us Two” by Milne, that Raoul Tawel and I had read at our wedding, which ends: “What would I do?” I said to Pooh,
“If it wasn’t for you,” and Pooh said: “True,
It isn’t much fun for One, but Two,
Can stick together, says Pooh, says he.
“That’s how it is,” says Pooh.
5. Seek more wonder and awe. We are created for wonder and awe. We just have to open our spirits to it.
6. There have been many American saints: Teddy Roosevelt, Ansel Adams, John D. Rockefeller, just to name a few — who have protected some absolutely incredible, nowhere else in the world like them, national parks for the American people and visitors from around the world. It is good that despite the rather bad things we have done, we can be proud and happy with the good things some Americans have done and gifted future generations with. And have you noticed, that when people are in and out in Nature, they are really nice? I think all the leaders of the world should just go on lots of hikes together in beautiful places and then we could just all work together for world peace and enjoy our lives. I hope we can turn our attention to preserving the planet so we can gift future generations with opportunities to see trees, and rivers, and wild, wacky geysers, and otters and beavers, and bison, grizzlies, and eagles, and rainbows and waterfalls and….. so for now, the final lesson to try to remember is: “We don’t inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.”

So, dear friends: Pictures don’t do it any justice at all, but here are some (hopefully) hints to entice you to plan your next trip to somewhere beautiful and inspiring. As a final word of advice from the First Peoples who discovered and lived in and cared for and enjoyed this area: Wherever you roam today: “Walk in beauty”.

(c) Jane Tawel, 2023