Where the Wild Things (Really) Are

Hi Everyone,  Here is the second article I talked about.  It is tied to the "End of the Marathon" article, so I here it is.  - Mark

Some of you may remember from my article in the last newsletter that we were taking a trip for Ian’s graduation, but I wasn’t going to talk about it at that time, other than to joke that it would be a cross between the Lewis & Clark expedition, Dances With Wolves, and Chevy Chase’s Vacation movie.  Little did I realize the accuracy of that statement.  Let me first say that no one died and wound up tied to the roof of the car and we did not tie the dog to the car bumper and forget about it.

Our son, Ian picked our destination this summer.  He said there were two things he wanted to see.  One was Alaska, and the other was wildlife.  Well, we found an inexpensive cruise out of Seattle through the Inside Passage to several Alaskan ports.  We also decided that instead of flying, we would drive from St. Augustine to Seattle.   After a little more than 8,000 miles in the car, 20 states, and 12 National Parks and Forests, we completed the trip.  And we thoroughly enjoyed it.  This was one of those trips where it wasn’t the destination that was important but rather the journey. Our route took us north through Chattanooga, St. Louis, Kansas City, Sioux City, and then west through the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming, and eventually to Seattle, Washington.  Coming home led us through Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and the Gulf states.  My biggest fear was the driving time, but that actually turned out to be very enjoyable.  Once you got west of St. Louis, there really was little to no traffic on any of the roads, including the interstate.  And going through the Great Plains and high desert put new meaning into the concept of what a wide, open space is.

Now, why is any of this important?  (You knew this was going to be more than a travelogue, right?)  Well, as some of you know, Ian has now started college and wants to be a cartographer.  This trip wasn’t just for fun.  When we take a vacation, we try to make it educational as well!  First, if you want to work with maps for a career, you better understand geography.  Not just the names of the states, but what rivers can do to a landscape, or how mountains were formed, or understand why there is snow on many mountains in June and July, or what it means to have sunlight for 20 hours a day in Alaska in the summer.  Sure, you can read about it or listen to your teacher lecture or look at pictures, but there is still nothing that teaches better than putting your hands on something and experiencing it for yourself.  So what areas did we hit?  Geography, geology, paleontology, biology, archeology, history, climatology, English, etc., you name it, we were exposed to it.  And you know what?  Half the time you don’t realize until it’s too late that you actually learned something.

So what kinds of things?  Well, in a short, and far from complete survey, the westbound trek pretty much followed the route taken by Lewis & Clark from St. Louis to the Pacific.  That led to much discussion on what it would have been like to walk that trip instead of drive it.  It was an impressive feat, even to me.  Seeing the wagon wheel ruts on the Oregon Trail outside of Baker City, Oregon – these are places where the rocks were worn down into tracks by the tens of thousands of wagons following each other through the years in the migration west by the settlers.  History!  (By the way, if you are ever there, the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center outside Baker City is fantastic.)  One of Ian’s favorite critters is the tortoise.  We have two at home.  On a Ranger hike in Badlands National Park the Ranger pointed out a fossil tortoise shell that was eroding out of a hill in the park – it was ‘only’ 10-12 million years old.  Or the visits to the Museum of the Rockies and to Mesa Land Community College, which both have excellent dinosaur exhibits. (Paleontology!)  Or spending a couple of days on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, where there is not just that big hole in the ground, but also some ruins of ancient Indian houses. (Geology! Archeology! Geography!)  Or taking a train ride up to the top of the White Pass between Skagway, Alaska and the gold fields – imagine walking that enough times to move 2 tons of equipment if you had been part of the gold rush era.  (History! Geography!)  Or seeing the Mendenhall Glacier, or being in the middle of a herd of 300 bison, or discovering that a grizzly is typically a lot bigger than a black bear (especially when there are no bars between you and them), etc., etc., etc….  The truth is, even as an experienced adult, many of these things are not easy to imagine.  Seeing makes the difference.  Now, what about English?  That was part of everything.  You have to read to understand.  And the desire to understand pushed him to read - all the time.  Interesting how that works….

The other thing that was important other than seeing was doing.  First, let me be clear, as a parent, don’t ever let me hear someone say that a child ‘cannot do’ something because of a disability.  Truth is that yes, there are some times when and some things where this may be the case, but the reality is that there are many, many things that a child with any kind of disability can do with a little research and pre-planning.  On this trip Ian went white water rafting on the Yellowstone River, went horseback riding in the Gallatin National Forest, did a Ranger-led hike in the Badlands, and a host of other things that you don’t normally associate with activities done by someone who has a physical disability.  Remember, Ian has cerebral palsy as well as being deaf. 

The perception of CAN’T is completely wrong!  As we planned the trip, I called places in advance to talk through any issues.  EVERY ONE of the groups we did these kinds of activities with were very open and accepting, willing to accommodate his needs and give advice on how best to participate.  Horseback riding has never been a problem for Ian, but the issue is making sure he has an easy-going horse who will respond and who won’t spook when it sees someone signing.  No Problem!  This wasn’t the first time the organization had someone with a disability ride with them and it went fine.  When we went rafting, the company had an extra hand available to help Ian navigate down the riverbank to the raft put-in (about 40 feet high at about a 50 degree angle) to get to the raft.  Ian sat in front of me (so I could grab him if he started over the side) and paddled like his life depended on it through class III rapids.  He now knows what it is like to get a face full of 45 degree water!  And he loved it.    My point here is that don’t just think you or your child can’t do something because of the disability.  Most likely, they can.  And not only will they have fun, they will learn something.

Finally, Ian (as well as us) had some memories made that will never go away. Did he see Alaska?  Yes, and he loved it.  Did he get to see wildlife?  Yes, tons – Bears, both black and grizzly, long horn sheep, mountain goats, elk, antelope, deer, beaver, bison, prairie dogs, reindeer, humpback whales and orcas, sea otters and seals, bald eagles, owls, and salmon, as well as a whole bunch of other critters.  Ian said his favorites were the bears.  However the one encounter that we always will remember was the one with the wolves in Yellowstone. 

They were the one animal we did not expect to see.  Less than 1 in a 1000 visitors to the park see a wolf.  Most that do see them are seeing them through spotter scopes at very long ranges.  Several rangers told us that they had never seen a wolf in their years working in the park.  Our sighting didn’t require a sighting scope.  In fact the three of us were the only people on a road in the park early one morning when something crested a hill coming towards us down the road.  Then more somethings coming our way. Then it became clear what those somethings were.  The picture of the alpha female is the picture at the start of this article.

It was one of the Yellowstone wolf packs, and they were hunting along the road.  I just stopped the car in the middle of the road and shut it down.  The wolves spent about 5 minutes moving back and forth around the car and into the brush on either side.  They weren’t paying us attention, but were definitely searching the surrounding area.  Our distance at times from them was about 6 feet. (Needless to say, I wasn’t opening the car door.)  They were beautiful and wild and certainly not someone’s pet.  They were definitely looking for something.  They then seemed to find the scent of what they were looking for, moved about 20 yards down the road, and then up into the brush and away.  

This was one of those moments that means something, and to us, one that will stick with us forever.  I’m not usually at a loss for words, but the resulting feeling was and is not one I can easily explain.  I could see it in my wife’s face, and especially in Ian’s, and I’m sure they could see it in mine.  It was a look of excitement and surprise and wonder.  It was a look that you get when something moves from the intellectual realm to the visceral.  We weren’t reading it in a book or looking at a picture or seeing it on TV.  We were seeing it for real.  You see, I could tell that Ian knew, without a shadow of a doubt, and would hold on to the same thing that my wife and I knew.  And for the three of us, it is something really, really cool.

You see, Ian knows where the wild things really are.