Day 88: (A means to an end)
I’m a day away from being home. I’ve travelled over fifteen thousand miles on this trip, and I’m almost home. No more mountains. No more cool northern breezes. No more Lake Lodge. No more bison.
It’s so odd. I really feel like I’ve left a part of myself behind up there. I don’t know if it’s for the better or not, not just yet, but I do feel a part of myself that’s changed. Being in that environment up there, the melting pot of the world; its effect is astounding. I’ve left behind many friendships, many memories that live on only in writing and in photographs. The problem is, it’s difficult to relive what we all experienced there in memories. One doesn’t feel as though they are back, only that one is prefacing a return at some point. I do know that I’ll go back, I just don’t know when.
On my drive out, I drove through the Beartooth Pass. It was positively the most beautiful thing that I have ever seen. It was more impressive than all the mountains, canyons, skies and fields that I had seen before that point. I remember about ten miles after I had gone through the Northeastern entrance of the park, I stopped to look back at the Pass, and I was awestruck. The mountains stood in all directions like the teeth of some demon slowly closing it’s disastrous maw upon the world. Glorious. I wish that I could have taken pictures or written things that properly described what I saw, but it was not something that can be explained. One must simply go and understand the majesty of those mountains. I’m sure there are many more for me to explore and be awestruck by, but these were the most impressive this far. I was dumbfounded by their regal monument. It was as though some giant had carved his mark upon the earth in a time of utter fury.
I have much more to say of my return, but all in good time. I am glad that it is almost over, but I feel that it is the first of many, many to come.
