Since I was supposed to be outgoing, I only brought one book along to camp, for reading before bed and if I woke up early. I’m not sure what I was thinking, but I brought, of all books, Master and Commander. It was a very surreal experience to go back to the cabin late at night. leaving a world of trees and hot chocolate and Speed Scrabble, and crack open my book to enter a world of sea water and rum and whist. I did not at all expect to finish the 450 page book on the trip, but after a sleepless night and an afternoon of watching Emma Darcy while she napped, I had finished it and there was another week of vacation to go! Well, I grew much more tired the longer we were on vacation, therefore going right to sleep at night instead of reading first, and we always had something to listen to in the van, so I ended up not being bored. But the next time, no matter how little time I expect to read, I shall bring a book of at least 600 pages, or two shorter ones.
I’ve heard it said many times that daughters grow up to “channel” their mothers, and, finding that a rather disconcerting thought, I pay attention to how I babysit. While at camp, I was taking Emma Darcy back to the cabin, and she was running in front of me. Since she is barely three years old, and does not have the best balance among toddlers, and the road was not at all smooth, I called out to her: “Don’t fall down!” Just as she responded, saying “I”m NOT going to fall down!”, I realized with horror that despite all my care to avoid it, I am channeling my mother. The very things that annoyed me when she did them, I am doing to my younger siblings. It was a sobering thought.
The last time we were at YBC, it had been sunny throughout the week. This week, however, we got our first foreshadowing of weather on Monday. Volleyball is, apparently, the official Church of Christ outdoor game, so on Monday we went out to play it. There were some clouds, but not many when we started, but we hadn’t gotten far before drops started coming down. The majority of players were from the Pacific Northwest, where rain is a normal part of life, and something that is more than likely ignored, so when a non-Pac-Nor player asked if we should call off the game for rain, one of the Pac-Nor players said: “For rain? When did water hurt anyone?” But Pac-Nor rain is in smaller drops than Montana rain, and once that started, and then added a lot of lightning (something the Pacific Northwest rarely gets), we all agreed that this was rain worthy enough to call off the volleyball for. And the rain and lightning accompanied most of the week, meaning that a lot of time was spent in the lodge talking and playing board games, rather than outside hiking or playing sports.
Emma Darcy is usually cheerful in the morning, which can be sometimes frightfully annoying to all us night-owls, but the later nights and long days of camping trips (not to mention sleeping in a foreign place) had taken enough toll on her by Tuesday morning, that when Purring Piggy came to wake her after the bell rang, she was not happy at all. She rolled over and responded with a long and agonized (but distinctly tired) “Noooooooo...”, as if Darth Vader had just announced that he was her father. And, of course, our laughing at her dramatics did nothing to improve her mood, but she didn’t repeat the performance through the rest of the week.
Emma Darcy is a constant source of humor to our family, though she rarely means to be, as shown by this small anecdote related to me by PP (who knew I was keeping a travel diary). Purring Piggy loves to talk to people, and she is also easily distracted, and Emma Darcy figured this out pretty quickly. One day, after she had promised to take Emma Darcy to the swings, Emma Darcy felt that she had to remind her: “Don’t talk to anyone!”
On Thursday, we went into Yellowstone National Park itself, and covered Mammoth Hot Springs and Norris Geyser Basin. The former we had seen before on our last time, and I was unable to conjure up much wonder again for a snowwhite mineral sculpture whose purpose seemed to be to bounce the bright sunlight into my eyes which were already squinting because I had forgotten my hat. That, and the unpleasant fact that touring Yellowstone involves hiking to almost everywhere, made the other factor of Yellowstone (the fact that you have to drive for hours to get anywhere) actually pleasant, comparatively.
I was thinking a good deal about Mansfield Park before we left, so Norris Geyser Basin tickled my fancy, especially the fact that it contains the most acidic geyser in the world. ;-) Irony worthy of Austen herself, I thought. On the way there, we stopped at a Ranger museum. The sun had been shining all day, without a cloud in the sky, so it was providential humor that put a thin little cloud over the sun seconds after someone’s complaint that it was too bright. The cloud was just thin enough to cause a little shade, but when I took a picture of it, I did not expect it to be even more fascinating on film.
Friday night was a talent show, which was memorable for our family because of Emma Darcy. She is very outgoing, but often shy in company for some odd reason, so we were very surprised when she ran up on stage just as the talent show was ending, and started singing "You Are My Sunshine". It was the sweetest thing in the world, even if we could barely tell what song she was singing because she was so quiet, and she probably got the loudest round of applause for her pluck.
By Saturday, the last day of camp, I was starting to feel ill, and was definitely ready to be home. But it was not to be. We had another four days of touring and traveling. Just before leaving camp, the strangest thing happened. A friend and I were sitting on a log when we saw a molehill move. I thought I was imagining it, but sure enough, little bursts of dirt were flying from the hole. I crept closer, and the mole itself came out and arranged its dirt with precision. It was too fast for me to get a picture, but my mom made me take a picture of the hole anyway, so we would remember it. I made a note to myself to label the picture as soon as we got home, or we would forget, and years later would puzzle over the shot of an odd hole in the ground among our camping pictures.
(Image key: #1, Yellowstone Bible Camp from above; #2, Sheepeater Cliff; #3, really cool cloud; #4, mole hill; #5, really interesting rock formations that apparently weren't considered worthy enough to name, but that we loved looking at)
