Post Yellowstone Impressions

I recently came back from a family roadtrip to Yellowstone. I remember being completely sick of sitting in a car for a Vancovuer -> San Diego road trip my family did in high school, but this one only involved one 11-hour driving, where I alternated with my dad, and did not feel as painful. I think one thing we still need to do better that I feel is part of the soul of road tripping is the spontaneous aspect of being able to stop wherever you’d like, but overall, this trip was a lot of fun.

My friend describes going on family vacations as feeling like baby-sitting his family, but exploring national parks with parents is an experience I cherish immensely - sitting in the same car together, marvelling at the same sights, playing board games and planning itineraries together - creating shared memories in the increasingly little time I have left with my parents is extremely important to me, and gives me great fulfillment every time I do it.

Below is a collection of thoughts and feelings that I had on this particular trip.

Yellowstone is an amazing park

Yellowstone is unlike any national park that I’ve been to so far, in large part due to its size. It encompasses three states, and each day it would take us hours to drive from one point of interest to the next. And the drives through the park were beautiful. We came in through the north entrance in gardiner, and as soon as we drove through the rooselvelt arches, we were greeted by expansive green hills that extended off in all directions, framed by distant mountain ranges. On the left side, the hills dropped down to a valley carved by the gardiner river, with carved cliffs rising above it. Driving through Hayden Valley and Lamar Valley gave us views of unending grasslands cut only by tranquill rivers and dots of bison.

I’d like to think that I’m pretty close to nature - me and grace go hiking around the Snoqualmie-Baker area pretty often, occasionally venturing further for fruit picking or visintg Mount Ranier - but looking across the vast plains and hills of Yellowstone felt different than standing on a mountain-top admiring the views, or sitting on horseback trudging through the woods. Nature felt vast and never-ending. I’ve never felt small and insignificant as I did driving through the valleys in Yellowstone. The ground was also lush and filled with shubbery, and distant mountains covered in trees, which made my surroundings feel covered with wildlife - a constrast from the desolate lands driving through arizona - this was the closest to wilderness that I have felt. I guess it’s also different from how I’ve felt atop a mountain peak - there my farthest vantage point was only towards the surrounding mountains not so far away. In yellowstone mountains and hills extend far into the horizon.

Another thing that sets Yellowstone apart for me is really the incredible park infrastructure for every viewpoint we went to - from large tourist destinations like Artist Point and Old Faithful, to even roadside stops like Fountain Paint Pots, every area had well-paved parking lots with plenty of space, constantly maintained boardwalks winding through all the geysers and springs, and numerous signs and plaques documenting all the aspects that made the park special (though I do admit towards the end I was getting tired of the thermophilic bacteria signs). It truly holds up its name as America’s oldest national park.

Despite all the people visiting yellowstone, it never felt like a headache trying to find parking, we never needed to drive off-road or even onto a gravel path, and we never needed to climb anything other than stairs. That makes this place a great national park for the family (compared to yosemite… which had awful parking on gravel roads, and I think primarily targetted towards hikers)

Maps are cool

Another thing that was cool was the precense of a large yellowstone map hanging on the wall of our airbnb (actually vrbo, airbnb was much more expensive for some reason. it sucks because I own airbnb stock and I love their UI and I want them to do good).

I feel like with the ubiquity and convenience of google maps and navigation, there isn’t really a functional need to look at physical maps anymore, however me and grace were both fascinated with the one in our vrbo. It laid out all big the roads going through yellowstone, the major points of attraction and their location with respect to each other. Grace and I were able to look at where we went every day, the routes we took, the landmarks and rivers we’ve visited, and how it all connected together.

I don’t think I’ve ever had this much entertainment looking at a map - gmaps in comparison felt like looking through a phone screen shaped keyhole, where we could only look at one sliver of the land at a time. I think it’s similar to writing down paper notes where you can see everything, or getting a second monitor instead of alt-tabbing. In the future, I will definitely make sure our kids have some cool maps to look at.

Observations about parents

Unlike me, my parents are Christian (maybe I consider myself like 5% christian), and besides the usual prayer at the dinner table or the occasional off-handed comment at why I should believe in God, I don’t really interact or experience the religious side of them. However, one thing I noticed on this trip is how they seem to always be filled with gratitude towards God.

On the first day, the forecast said it was going to rain, but nothing fell for most of the day despite the dark and moody presence of clouds throughout. My parents commented that they were grateful towards God for preventing the rain from ruining our day. On the second day, the forecast correctly predicted a wonderfully sunny day, and my parents again praised God for bestowing a day of great weather for vacation. On the third day, it was occassional showers, and we got rained on the way back from Morning Glory Pool near Old Faithful. By the time we made it to the car, the showers turned into a pretty heavy rain that continued for a while, and we got mildly soaked. This time, my parents thanked God for caring about them and making sure it didn’t pour when we were outside.

Whether or not God actually did any of those things is of little concern to me, but I do think the attitude is definitely worth learning from. Always looking at the optimistic side of every situation and being filled with gratitude must make them much happier people in their every day lives, and is our whole existence not to optimize for happiness and fulfillment?

As the older brother in the family, and as my parents get older, I feel like I should be helping out my parents more, and vacation should be a time for them to completely relax and detach from work. However at many times during the vacation, I felt like in fact I was the one kicking back and relaxing, while my parents (primarily my mom) were doing the majority of the work. At one point everyone but my mom was playing card games at the table while she did the dishes. On one hand, I’m incredibly thankful at the opportunity to relax and spend time with the rest of the family, but I also feel guilty for not providing the same opportunity for them.

My chinese sucks

Nothing more to elaborate here. There were multiple times when I wanted to say something, yet could not find the words to express myself adaquetely in Chinese. Or the way I did felt awkward despite being correct. I wonder if my family feels disappointment when I talk to Grace in English, like I’m losing my heritage. But on the other hand, they brought me over here to Canada and the United States, and I am in fact Chinese-Canadian!