Westward to Seattle

Our new apartment, just north of the center of Fremont, Seattle, perches two stories above the street on the windowed west side, overlooking a steep hillslope. On the east side, the building's pushed into the hill, so that the door to that side opens one story below ground level, and one must mount stairs to reach the parking lot. Along the third, south side, our apartment's windows look out on the upwards slope. Trees and thick, spiny blackberry bushes grow there, and deeply colored ripe blackberries tempt the eye, mostly beyond reach, or outside windowscreens that do not open.

I walked around the building today, to see if I could scale the southeast fence that would have allowed access to the blackberries. Vines overgrow the access, alongside signs that proclaim "DO NOT TRESPASS". I would, though, if it weren't for my knee, injured playing ultimate earlier this summer. Perhaps Paul will crawl over for me.

We arrived here last Wednesday after a cross-country drive, stopping in the Badlands, Custer State Park in South Dakota, Yellowstone, and the Cascades in Washington. We saw wildlife: bison walking along the road in the prairieland of Custer State Park, flanking our car. We sat motionless and breathless as that vast bulk of animals passed - twenty of them or so, with calves. The bull brought up the rear, ruffed by dark brown fur, his head hanging enormous on that hump-shouldered frame, his eyes deep-set and calm.

In Yellowstone, on the steep slopes of Dunraven Pass, we stopped amid a traffic jam. Fifty onlookers crowded the narrow pass, binoculars or long-lensed cameras pressed to their eyes. A mama black bear and two cubs wandered just below, no further than 100 meters from us, wandering the steep pine woodlands in search of pinecones. One baby, about as big as a - a what? a coffee table? a golden retriever? so hard to define that rotund bulk of childish fur, black, endearing and playful with nose and ears sticking out - stopped atop a boulder with a big cone between his paws, chewing on it with the gleeful, unselfconscious and awkward delight of childhood. The mama flopped on her back awhile to relax and scratch her chest.

And then the wolf, who lay in spotting-scope range, barely visible in the shadows of the scraggly trees in the prairie down the hill. We waited until at last he rose. After a moment's stately retreat, he turned, and I had an instant's glimpse of his grey profile, tongue lolling, body rangy and lean. Then he vanished up the hill, where, onlookers told me, the rest of his pack waited. Patient watchers had seen the whole pack earlier in the morning, both pups and adults, but Paul and I arrived only ten minutes too late to spot them.

We spent two and a half days in Yellowstone, camping at the crowded but relaxed campsites in the cold nights. In the days, we took walks through the backcountry - past an alpine lake where gilled salamanders swam, up the slopes of Mt. Washburn, and along the heat-soaked canyon of the Yellowstone River below Tower Falls. Around us, the yellow and white and red rocks - the osprey sailing and screaming - the pines clinging to their cones and their stiff needles in the dry weather. One evening, we began a walk along the top of the canyon. But a dry and ominous fog swept in, reminiscent of smog and smelling of ash: the lingering breath of a forest fire in the northeast of Yellowstone. We had to turn back, since we didn't know where the fire was until we asked a waitress about it back at Roosevelt Lodge.

I should mention, too, the geysers and pools. Bright waters, blue and green, surreal and smoking, covered in fog. The bursting mud-pits, bubbling and spitting, as though some beast lay uneasily sleeping beneath. Dragon's Mouth Spring, exhaling hot steam with a dragon-like roar. Fountain Geyser, which enthusiastically and impressively spouted a huge tower water for minutes on end, repeatedly splashing us where we stood on the walkway. It stood near little Jet, which spat water from small but artistic calcite spouts. And Grand Prismatic Pool, deep and shrouded, blue and red like a baleful eye, its rainbow of colors reflected in the fog overlying it.

Now, after the last of the journey through leaning mountains, after our picnic along the cliffs beside the shining Madison River rippling over the rocks, and after the cool moist stillness of the mossed Cascades, I sit in the sunlight in our living room. And it's time for dinner, so I'll bring this entry to a close.