YELLOWSTONE

i have but 1 very vivid memory of yellowstone. i'm sure we did more than just drive thru....did we camp there or head south to grand teton's? oh, well...back to the story.

as we were driving thru the woods and meadows area (no gieshers) traffic came to a halt. at first we had no idea, but a passing car advised us a bear was in the road a little farther down. we creeped along like rush hour traffic in the interstate. being a little higher up than cars we could see the bear prior to being right next to it. hank decided we needed a picture and crawled on top of the jeep to get one. not satisfied with that shot, he climbed down and started walking towards the bear for a better shot....yes we were immortal.......if i recall i did not think this was a wise move, but hank did not listen and completed his mission scrambling back inside prior to being mauled.

on a side note that picture hank took was one of only a handful that made it. i must have had a dozen rolls that got ruined in the darkroom, our photographic evidence of this adventure is like the soundtrack/playlist...non existent. but, one day during 1st semester at Sewanee hank and i where working in the darkroom and blew up a picture of a bear halfway inside a car (hank's shot) and we could make out the minnesota license plate. we wrote a note to the department of motor vehicles asking the name and address of the plate owner (for $1.00 they provided it). it belonged to a farmer in southern minnesota (city escapes me). we wrote a note and mailed them the picture. a month or so later a reply came. a nice letter from a couple who appreciated our efforts. they had left their window down and the bear had stuck his hear inside the car. they tried to explain this to their family when they got back to minn., but the pictures they took as they were diving away from the window did not turn out. they invited us to stop by if we were ever in the area. i felt really good about tracking them down and getting that picture to them.

after yellowstone we headed south to the grand tetons. couldn't camp there.....to many black flies and/or mosquito's....we kept trucking, stopping at a rest area in the middle of nowhere wyoming. the picnic table we sheltered, the ceiling of the shelter was covered with names, dates and cities. joe added "fools names and fools faces always appear in public places...joe thompson, lexington,ky" to one of the few unmarked areas.

this part of wyoming is where the headlights started to malfunction. the floor kick switch would stick....going from low to high to completely off to high to completely off. if you kicked it enough times it would settle back to low, but you had to remember not to kick on the high beams or it would get stuck either on high or no lights at all. of course using high beams on a 2 lane highway can be blinding to oncoming traffic or cars you catch up to so we would be driving along kicking the switch numerous times to get low beams back on and with the lights going on and off it appeared we were signally others for help or to pull over (one did and we stopped and apologized, they were not to pleased if i recall).........the rolling tin can home was falling apart......