Don’t do it, Billy!

The question: Which one is Billy?

Traffic Delay

Not a doctored photograph.

Not a developing country.

Not a singular occurrence.














The above pictures portray actual bison on an actual road causing actual gridlock in Yellowstone National Park. Bison can run 30 miles per hour (48 kilometers per hour). None of them broke the speed limit while being photographed.

Marching through Zion

The park ranger looked ticked. Dad said he probably wasn’t too happy about the hummingbird stuck in the front grill of our motor home. He let us through the tunnel to Zion National Park anyway.






In the month of July, Zion National Park averages 0.8 inches (2.0 centimeters) of rain, but 14 thunderstorms. That works out to 0.06 inches (0.15 centimeters) of rain per thunderstorm, which explains why I didn’t get very wet when a storm blew in on the East Rim Trail.




“I’m in Utah, and I just saw a mule deer!” That’s what I reported to a friend who called me from Missouri, shortly after a mule deer wandered through our Zion National Park campground. I love the long, floppy ears.




The management made a point to warn us about slipping off the trails, but said nothing about the effects of falling into a river.

Grand Time in Arizona

Shortly after we arrived at the Grand Canyon, I overheard someone say, “This is better than the big hole we saw yesterday.”

Perhaps the person referred to Meteor Crater Natural Monument, located off of I-40 between Flagstaff and Winslow, roughly 80-100 miles (129-161 kilometers) southeast of the Grand Canyon’s South Rim.


My parents and I had also visited the crater on the previous day (the meteor crater, not the Grand Canyon). As we approached the entrance to this cosmic pothole, I cynically remarked, “If I had a big hole in the ground, I would try to charge people to see it, too.” By the time we left, though, I decided that the experience had been worthwhile indeed. I was also ready to proceed to bigger and grander things.





The Grand Canyon park service staff, especially the shuttle bus drivers, thoroughly impressed me. All I expected bus drivers to do was get me from Point A to Point B. At the Grand Canyon, each driver—with very few exceptions—went above and beyond the call of duty, as though their personal mission were to entertain visitors. Part of the shuttle bus drivers’ job description must be “strong sense of humor” because they were all really funny.


One bus driver told stories of those who had taken the “speed tour” of the Grand Canyon. “You don’t want to take the speed tour,” he said, clarifying that he meant those who had fallen off trails and quickly found themselves in the depths of the canyon.





The driver made a point to tell one such story that ended well. After slipping off a trail, an 82-year-old man rolled most of the way to a landing 150 feet (46 meters) below, stopping just short of a 3000-foot (914-meter) drop to the bottom of the canyon. Four and a half hours later, when park rangers had descended to his level with ropes, the man was still taking pictures.

That octogenarian is an inspiration to us all. The Grand Canyon is majestic, breathtaking and utterly un-capture-able through pictures. None of that stopped me from trying. I took nearly 400 pictures. My blog will spare you from most of those. I leave it to you to find three condors, two squirrels, and a pair of outhouses pictured in this post.

Road Trip!

I returned safely to the Land of Plenty, a land flowing with Dr. Pepper and Krispy Kremes. I nearly got delayed in Frankfurt by an offer from Lufthansa to trade my connection to Chicago for a night in New York and 600 Euros, but my services were ultimately not needed to solve their overbooking woes.

Had the New York and half-a-month’s-salary alternative panned out, I would have missed church on Sunday morning and missed seeing some folks whom I desperately needed to see—more than I realized. Some things money cannot buy.

My parents and I set out for an adventure, heading west of the Mississippi River. We also brought along Griffin, our trusty feline sidekick, who ferociously defends our motor home against all enemies, foreign and domestic.






We made some interesting stops en route National Parks in the western United States:

• St. Elmo, Illinois. Never knew Sesame Street characters got towns named after them, let alone canonization.
• Liberal, Kansas. Home to the Wizard of Oz Museum. Also home to my 99-year-old great-grand Aunt Nell: my mother’s mother’s father’s sister (in case you were wondering how that worked). Not sure I had ever met anyone that old before. If I reach that age, I hope to have a tenth her splendor.
• Panhandle, Texas. The stars at night are big and bright, except when the thunderclouds roll in and turn your motor home into a tympanic symphony, stirring those not talking late with kinfolk.
• Gallup, New Mexico. Stayed at a KOA sandwiched between I-40 and Historic Route 66. A Denny’s Restaurant next-door served us dinner. I refused to order a Grand Slam, afraid I might choke, just like the National League in the ninth inning of the 77th All-Star Game Tuesday night.

We have virtually forsaken all gas stations except for Flying Js, due to their sunny disposition toward motor homes. Dad no longer says, “We need to find a gas station.” Instead we hear, “There’s a Flying J coming up in 54 miles.” Our bladders plan accordingly.

I laboriously debated whether or not to fork over $19.95 for Flying J’s WiFi to keep my blog sizzling throughout the adventure. I hope my faithful blog readership—the millions around the world who have already made “Wise and Otherwise” their homepage—appreciates my dedication to fresh content.

Worlds Apart?

Three

It’s the Third of July. I sit in my apartment in North Africa, three things running through my mind:

1) Tomorrow I will celebrate the Fourth of July, America’s 230th Birthday, on my third continent in as many years.

2) This guy could fill in a lot of places on this map.

3) I wonder if the monkey I photographed in North Africa a year ago January (pictured below) is related to Oops, the macaque that recently escaped a Virginia zoo.