Yellowstone, August, 2004.

Ok. This picture was snapped by a fellow tourist while we were visiting Yellowstone, in August. So there we are, or there we were, captured as a complete nuclear family. Or ,as our Commander in Chief might say, a "nukelar" family.

The charming details of our visit to Yellowstone are to be found in the prior post, below. See "How I Spent My Summer Vacation." (All similarities to anyone living or dead, purely coincidental)

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Who is that masked man?

We recenlty returned from our vacation in Moose country. It was ahhh, shall we say, Moosey. And Beautiful. Extraordinarily beautiful. We stayed in the Grand Tetons for a few days, and then in Yellowstone. The Tetons, through which I was compelled by my lovely wife to march on a number of almost entirely up-hill, family hikes, look like the Alps. Only taller. Ahh, I love nature. (Especially when viewed from the comfort and convenience of an air conditioned SUV.) While in the Tetons, we not only hiked, we rode horses (see above picture for documentary evidence) and did a float trip down the Snake River. ("Once ... in the wilds of Whyoming, I lost my corkscrew, and we were forced to live on nothing but food and water, for days." W.C. Fields) During our trip we saw lots of Bison and even a gray wolf. Hannah, was very excited. We did not, however, see any bears, which was an immeasurable relief to me. As far as I am concerned, all bears should be of the cute, inanimate overstuffed kind that Teddy Roosevelt made popular and that are frequently dragged around by small children.

In Yellowstone, we saw Old Faithful and a bunch of other geothermal oddities, which apparently make Yellowstone one of the most-visited National Parks in America. (I, personally, observed a number of Japanese and German tourists, ooohing and ahhing at the site of bubbling mud and malodorous hot gases.) Despite the irrepressible excitement that accompanies one's observation of the earth's escaping H2S gas, I couldn't wait to get back to the hotel for a lovely mid-afternoon nap. Just call me "Mr. Natural."