Tales from the Trail
When to Make Reservations for Yellowstone
When I worked the desk at what was then called the Old Faithful Visitor Center, there were two questions I dreaded. First, "Are there any campgrounds with openings?" The second was related. "Are there any hotel rooms available?" While there was never a particularly...
How to Be Prepared: Don’t Leave it Behind
“You’ve got a griz!” The call came from the picnic area below—just seconds after I had discerned that the brown shaggy head and shoulders cresting the hill twenty-five yards to my left was not, in fact, a bison. It was a bear. Wherever it was headed, we were in the...
Gifts and Graces | Spring 2023
When it comes to navigating the landscape of life, I find it dishearteningly easy to drift toward reacting in fear or finding my way by feel rather than walking by faith. Maybe you know what that’s like. One practice that helps me stay on course is to pay attention....
Be Prepared: 4 Must-Have Yellowstone Items to Pack
No one really wants to take time from what we want to be doing in Yellowstone to shop for something we didn't think to bring along. To save you that headache, here are a few must-have items you'll want to put on your list of things to pack: Sunscreen Yellowstone’s...
How to be Prepared: Make Noise
“It’s time to turn around,” my husband said. Relieved, I pivoted on the spot. J and I were in Yellowstone’s Bechler Region, a remote area with no roads, plenty of waterfalls, and its share of bears. It took the morning just to drive there. After spending the rest of...
Hiking with Kids: What You Need to Know
We started hiking with our kids in Yellowstone while they were still babies. Because of that, we've embraced some mindsets and strategies to foster a pleasant hiking experience for everyone. We want them to be happy, safe, and motivated to keep going. (And we...
How to Be Prepared: Be Alert
Crossing the gravel parking lot, Dad and I turned toward the Gardner River. Worn by wildlife and fly fishermen, the narrow path that paralleled it wasn’t an official trail. We knew it only because of the hours three generations of our family had collected here at...
Where to Picnic in Yellowstone: Our 5 Favorites
Because I promote picnicking as the best way to deal with the inevitable and recurring need for food, here are some YNP picnicking realities and a few of our favorite picnic areas. (Note: Each is near water—either beside a river or above Yellowstone Lake.) Our 5...
Gathering Winter’s Saving Graces
For Yellowstone's bison, it's the end of this season that's most dangerous. They've spent the winter foraging for frozen foliage by swinging their heads back and forth through the snow like a bucket on an excavator. After a long winter of burning their reserves...
Are You Prepared?
My husband and I were just approaching the trailhead when I saw the sign. Again. WARNING: BEAR FREQUENTING AREA. The weight of impending doom settled on my soul and my mind launched in with its barrage of questions. How many bears? Is it one or a mama with cubs? How...
Picnicking in Yellowstone: What You Need to Know
“He’s a good big brother, helping his little sisters like that,” said an older woman as she walked past us on her way to her picnic table. “Thanks,” my husband and I mumbled together, remembering. Our kids were playing quite happily together along the shore...
How We Prepare Him Room
Zipping my jacket to my chin, I picked up speed in hopes of generating more body heat. Before long it would be warm—possibly even hot—but that would be later. For now, the October sun hadn’t been up long enough to chase away the overnight chill. Earlier, when the...
Where to Hike in Yellowstone: 5 Short Hikes
By temperament, I am hard-pressed to choose a favorite anything. Ask for my favorite food, color, or book and I’ll give you two. Or maybe three. Sometimes more. So here are not one, two, even three favorite short hikes in Yellowstone. Here are my favorite five,...
Navigating by Faith When We’re Disoriented by Life
At the switchback, I paused for a breath and surveyed the landscape. Interested as I was in the spruce and fir trees dotting Lamar Valley’s faded grass, what I really wanted was to see how far my husband and I had come so I could figure out know how much further I had...
Our Seasons Aren’t As Simple as They Seem
Summer’s green is wearing thin. Before long, it will give way to the colors of autumn. Between the arrival of unrelenting heat and a steady green march across the lawn, some years it seems we go straight from winter to summer without stopping for spring. This doesn’t...
Gifts & Graces | Summer 2022
For more years than I care to admit, July 1 has settled in with a heavy sense of loss. Summer, I believed, was almost over. This is as unhelpful as it is untrue. How can a season that was born just days before be nearly at its end? Maturity is teaching me to take on...
Gifts and Graces | Spring 2022
One practice I use to keep me oriented to the features of the landscape of my life is to list the season's gifts and graces. It's a simple way to fix my eyes on the good so I can do my part to foster a hopeful perspective and healthy mindset. The list is intended to...
One Way We Find Our Way
“This way, Babe.” Late the night before, my husband, J, and I had checked into a hotel in Nebraska. Now it was morning, time to resume our road trip. I stepped out of our room and turned to the right, which, apparently, was wrong. “Really?” I asked. I was sure this...
How We Build Strength for Tough Times
“It’s easier if you walk along the edge,” my husband said. We were taking on unfamiliar terrain. I knew how to hike the packed dirt trails in the midwest and the mountains. But in Utah’s high desert where my KEENS tossed up a spray of sand with every step? Not so...
Winter Gifts and Graces
Of the practices I use to foster a hopeful perspective and healthy mindset, keeping a list of the season's gifts and graces is the simplest. Somewhere along the line, I started rearranging it into a bell shape and now I can't really stop. This season's gathering of...
Now is Not the Time to Wait
Every winter, I direct a troupe of middle and high school actors. From the very first year, there has always been that rehearsal. If you have ever worked with a group of kids, you know what I mean: mass distraction, constant talking, and management issues of all...
Gifts and Graces | Fall 2021
I have a long history of believing the way it is today is the way it always will be. This is especially true when I find myself traveling tough terrain but it spills over into easy stretches, too. Maybe you can identify. As a mindset, it doesn’t serve well. It...
Choosing an Adventurous Life
Two Octobers ago, I paused on the bank of the Gardner River and wondered just exactly why I would choose to be standing there in a swimsuit in twelve-degree air. We’d been there before–at least, my husband, two older kids, and I had. At that particular stretch of the...
How to Guard Your Heart
A long, long time ago—forty years last month—my parents took my little brother and me to Yellowstone. If you’ve read around here long, you know my life has never been the same. (Thank you, Mom and Dad.) One of the sights I most remember from that first visit is...
Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Proverbs 4:26
