The Old Faithful - Redux

Bozeman, MT, Jackson Hole, WY, Salt Lake City, UT and Idaho Falls, ID. The names conjure up picture postcards, abandoned barns, men on Harleys and a long, lonely, windswept stretch of highway leading to the mythical splendor of Yellowstone National Park. Beyond the snowcapped mountains, lie billowing meadows of slender wheatgrass. Blue and purple wildflowers dance among them, their eager faces turned to the temperate Taiga sun. Far away, from the woods of aspen and birch, a lone greywolf eyes the elks and bisons grazing beside a gurgling stream. Ponds of scalding mud spew columns of steam into the blue of sky. This, they have been doing much before we learnt to measure time with watches. Have I been there before? Maybe in another life, I have.

I wonder, will I be able to rest there knowing that my ear is pressed against the gentle heaving of Vulcan's bare chest, with white, hot lava oozing out of subterranean pores, somewhere down below? Will the sleeping caldera rumble underneath our puny little Coleman tent, laughing at our feeble refuge, a trembling construct of metal and plastic? How will it raise its precocious little head against the unforgiving Goddess who bid us all to prostrate ourselves before her on the damp earth without appearing to be defiant? I don't know what draws me back, time after time. It must be the insatiable craving to be free of all things permanent that underlies all forms of wanderlust. From the moonscapes of New Mexico, abandoned beaches of Texas, verdant hills of Arkansas and rugged canyonlands of Utah, we have been forever thirsting for this heady opiate. Now we are getting ready to go back again. Going back for four days in the sun when our biggest achievement will be to build a fire. No seeking validation from uncaring humans, no counting worldly possessions, no competing. Away from the frustrations, disillusionment and constant clamoring of yuppiedom, we will trade the comforts of modern life for an existence much, much more primitive. I find it totally ironical that simultaneously, we are also scheming and plotting to buy ourselves a house.

PS Congrats to Abhinav Bindra for doing us proud and for taking us, where a billion others failed reach. I watched Team China flaring and vaulting their way to the Men's Team Gymnastics Gold last night and thought to myself, all our 'shining' is just empty talk, we still have lightyears to go.