Yellowstone

Whoever labeled Yellowstone "a park" made a grave error: the size of it is mind-boggling and exceeds two or three european states put together. Just to make the recommended one-day tour took us 10 hours - we climbed steep mountains, crossed The Continental Divide twice at more than 6000 feet, crossed vast valleys churning with geisers and watched elk, bison and moose.
The most impressive was the Norris valley of geisers. There one can walk past the Porcelain Lake, admire multicolored hot holes...
I dipped my hand into a warm stream and smelled a slight odor of sulfur. Dead trees stood on the whitened ground...
The Yellowstone lake was equally impressive - seemingly endless, it is also fed by geisers - some of the holes are under the water and look like tiny volcanos...
We also watched the eruption of The Old Faithful!

From Missoula via Butte to West Yellowstone

Wow! What a day!
It all begun peacefully: the rain that poured all night subsided by 9 o'clock. The air was crisp and fragrant. The really good breakfast served at our Best Western Grant Creek Hotel also helped to put us in a pleasant mood. So, we decided to detour
and see the sights of Missoula.
We found it charming, provincial and warm. There were a few historical buildings, rather well preserved. The most interesting, however, was the railroad station.
We enjoyed the scenic road to Butte, and had a very nice lunch 30 miles before Butte, on Clark's Fork, of course.
After lunch our luck has changed: the roiling clouds far east turned a nasty color of dark grey, and it began to rain. In Butte, we missed I-90 and turned into I-15 by mistake... that took us extra 10 miles, which was a blessing in disguise. By the time we came back to Butte, darkness descended and all hell broke loose: it began to hail!!! The size of hail freaked me out: some pieces were as big as a hazelnut! I could see absolutely nothing - and stopped the car in a side street, which soon turned into a picture of white Christmas, with hail 6 inches deep on the grass. It kept banging on the car with such vigor, that I was expecting windows to pop out! After 10 minutes of this the hail turned into pouring rain; streams of muddy water flooded streets. Now i know what sewer does in a flood: it turns into geisers! Water was gushing 2 feet high from the lids of manholes...
It took us some time to get going again...
We passed the Continental divide at Pipestone, soon after Butte... Rags of white clouds drifted on the road... An hour later the car began to skid a little under the powerful gusts of wind. I slowed down, and smart girl I! Rain and a bit of hail caught with us again!!!
Soon after Whitehall we took state 359, then 287 - those were narrow, often just one lane one way roads.. Cows and hay in big rolls abounded on both sides. Strange skeletal abandoned farmhouses... And quiant little villages in mountain glens... The cutest of all was Ennis, almost at the doorstep of the Yellowstone. Well, we had to stop there!!!
It is dark outside now. We are all safely at the hotel in West Yellowstone. I am dead beat... Maybe should go for a swim...

Onwards East! Day 1

Today we - myself, my parents and my friend Larisa loaded a really big Ford 4-wheeler with our numerous luggage pieces. I could not but think Jerome K. Jerome... I believe we did look rather like we are going to search for Stanley... The only thing that saved us from gathering a large crowd was that we packed our car around 6 in the morning... But, as it usually is, we left only by 8, as I kept loosing one thing after another.
I do have a navigation system, so driving was not really a problem. We crossed the Cascades and entered their rain shadow areas- dry, yellow, barren, almost a moonscape. And yet - there was something majestic about the dusty baked gorges and passes... something untamed, defiant, powerful beyond imagination. Then the I-90 crossed the Eastern Washington almost straight as if drawn by a cyclopic ruler... There were some fast drivers out there... By 2 we crossed the state line into Idaho. It was quite different - more moist, lots of conifers, especially pines, narrow lakes, small rivers. The names Clark and Fork and their combinations - prevailed. Montana welcomed us by even more rugged rocky slopes, mostly covered by dark conifers, and sometimes scarred by long shale tongues. Here and there one could see marks of past forest fires.
Missoula appeared through a haze of mock rain at 6:30. We landed for today!

Liturgy

A boy and a girl, very little
sat down on the steps
of the kiot
amidst the marshmallow innocence
of pink chrysanthemums
at the footsteps of a Golgotha
made of painted wood
where every turn of the carved ornament
is a new adventure and a new island
and the carpet on the floor rises
in the brilliance of dazzlingly beautiful
flowers and trees
with the dulcet music falling from the skies
in the soft even light of the golden candles
the oak floors melt into the ocean
and above their heads
rises like a sail
The Holy Mother with the eternal Child
smiling gently,
tenderly,
a devastating, heart-stopping smile

Low Tide

Somber cinereal disconsolate skies breathe wet heavy breezes
Over the slick leaden mirror of salty waters, trembling in cold and fever
The tide carries away the last whispers and long-broken promises
Adorning the sandy strips in shiny necklaces of broken shells and dead crabs,
The concentric circles of life and death, ephemeral and eternal.
Acacia trees on the dunes and crabgrass spread hungry nets of roots,
Among the sharp pungent odors of decomposing seaweed
Round pieces of polished glass, the green tears of the ocean,
Sparkle in longing for the by-gone waves,
And by the piers the boats crowded, narrow, nervous, like a flock of seagulls,
Like young girls in white dresses, in the wind, their hair undone and flowing
Their long slender arms lifted in a gesture of prayer and hope for the wind
And freedom, their hearts unevenly beating in presentiment of a new dawn.