Travels With David, pt. III

June 15, 2001: Yellowstone, WY - Couer d'Alene, ID

Proust would have been terribly disappointed: it wasn't until nearly 5 o'clock this afternoon that I remembered having driven this exact same route once before -- from Yellowstone Park, north to Interstate 90, west through Butte and Missoula,Montana, and on to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho before turning north towards Canada. So much for remembrances of things past. On the other hand, it was 31 years ago that I last drove this route, and I was driving an anonymous red VW camper instead of a bright yellow VW Beetle named Daisy. The weather was dark and brooding and rainy back in the summer of 1970, while sunshine sparkled all around us today. And my driving companion was not the 21 year old son who sits beside me today, but someone I'd just as soon forget. Under the circumstances, perhaps Proust would forgive my lapse of memory; or as one of David's musical selections put it, in a song called "Ooh La La" by The Faces (made popular in a recent automobile commercial on television):

I wish that
I knew what I know now,
When I was younger ...

David doesn't want to talk about Proust, as we drive away from the Yellowstone Lodge to begin the day's trip at 10 AM: he's still waking up. Morning isn't his best time, even in the best of circumstances; and I probably aggravated the situation by shuffling around our hotel room at 6:30 AM this morning, filling the room with the squeal of the computer modem as I logged in on the Internet to pick up my mail. We stop at a "gas mart" to fill up the tank, and I bring a blueberry muffin and a hot cocoa back to David; he gives me a smile that says he'll eventually become coherent and communicative once again. Meanwhile, he has turned on the first musical selection for the day: Bryter Later, by Nick Drake. "Good park music," he explains succinctly. Yup. Right. Sure. As it turns out, it really is good park music.

The car thermometer says 47 degrees, but I don't believe it: it feels closer to freezing, and there is snow on the ground from a snowfall that must have occurred two or three days ago. An old, fat, scraggly deer meanders along the edge of the parking lot as we pay our bill, check out, and prepare to drive off. Deer are one thing, especially when it's an aging doe with no antlers; but the instructions for our room last night also pointed out that black bears and grizzlies wander through some of the peripheral areas of the lodge compound, foraging for food and hunting for fish in the streams. Bears I can do without; into the car and off we go.

Our plan is to drive up the west side of Yellowstone to see Old Faithful, and then leave the park at the West Yellowstone exit. Traffic is fairly steady as we move along the 17-mile route, and when we finally reach the visitor's center, I'm relieved to see that the football-sized parking lot is only a third full. But a look of horror comes over David's face. "You mean you want to park, and get out," he asks incredulously, "and walk up to see the geyser?"

"Well, yeah," I respond, taken by surprise. "I thought that's what you wanted to do ..."

"No, no, no!" he says, apparently astounded that one has to explain such things. "I just wanted to drive by it."

One could easily launch into a standard parental lecture about the Imperative Duty to get out, having driven some 900 miles to reach Yellowstone Park, and march up to the geyser, in order to stand gawking amongst a crowd of hundreds, waiting for Old Faithful to erupt on whatever schedule it apparently maintains so faithfully. But what do I care? I've seen the damn thing already, though I wasn't giving Proust any credit for that remembrance just now; and with our luck, I could imagine having to stand there for an hour or two before we saw a spout of water that an urban kid might well compare to the fountains in Central Park. And besides, now you can watch Old Faithful on an Internet Webcam; click here to see it yourself. So, with nary a second thought and without even slowing down, I shrug and circle around, back out of the visitor parking lot, and back to the main road.

Well, we didn't see Old Faithful, active or dormant -- but there were lots of other geysers along the road, in various states of activity. Hissing and steaming, bubbling and gurgling, to the awe and delight of literally hundreds of tourists who were already lined up along the walkways and scenic overlooks. We also came upon a dozen bison along the side of the road, munching on blades of grass in total disregard for the excited crowds of tourists who had gotten out of their cars in order to walk up within a foot or two to get a good shot with their flash cameras. I don't know if you can see this reduced-size picture clearly, but some of these creatures have horns; and they weigh several thousand pounds. We took our picture from an open window, and decided to leave the rest of the tourists to their fate.

By the time we reach the park exit, it's time for the next album: a group called Beulah entertains us with songs from their album When Your Heartstrings Break. I ask David whether it's a British band, and he informs me that they're from San Francisco. Oh, well -- England, San Francisco, what's the difference? I gather that the lead musician is someone named Miles Kurosky, and the album was produced by someone named Robert Schneider, from Elephant 6. The significance is lost on me, but the music is good; I recommend the album to any other musically illiterate fathers out there.

We're now driving up Highway 287, alongside the Madison River, in a valley formed by two parallel ranges of mountains: the Gravelly Range, and the Madison Range. It's a lush, gorgeous area; but some 40 years ago, there was apparently a massive earthquake (measuring 7.5 on the Richter scale) that stopped up the river and created an "earthquake lake" just below (i.e., just north of) the Hebgen Dam (click here for details if you care about statistics, or here if you want to see some historical photos of the earthquake). Proust would be mildly pleased with me: I remember stopping to look at the evidence of the earthquake's destruction when I drove through here in the fall of 1994. David is intrigued by the story and some of the sights, so we stop for a moment to take a picture of the earthquake lake. What appears as twigs in the water are the dead trunks of full-grown trees that were buried when the earthquake dammed up the river before the Army Corps of Engineers blasted a 50-foot path through the rubble.

Beulah has now come to an end, and Tom Petty now regales us with his Greatest Hits. After what seems like dozens of bands and albums I've never heard of before, I'm finally on familiar ground. Maybe it's because Petty has been around almost as long as I have, or maybe it's because I can actually understand most of his lyrics. The next-to-last song, "Learning to Fly," was written in 1991 by Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne; to a simple rhythmic beat, it tells us that

Well I started out down a dirty road
Started out all alone
And the sun went down as I crossed the hill
And the town lit up, the world got still

I'm learning to fly, but I ain't got wings
Coming down is the hardest thing

So much for Tom Petty; David informs me that the next selection is an "experiment": a group called Lilys, which I gather is his way of saying that I might not like it. "They're from Philadelphia," he says by way of further apology, "and they're trying to sound like the Kinks." I actually know two or three reasonably nice people in Philadelphia, so I do my best to listen with an open mind. Hmmm... interesting, but David is basically right: Lilys and I won't be spending much time together in the future.

By now, we've come nearly a hundred miles since exiting Yellowstone Park, and it's nearly 1 PM; David says he's not hungry, but I sure am. We stop in the little town of Ennis, where the Ennis Cafe beckons us with promises of strawberry pie and other delicacies. I settle for a cup of chili and a chef salad, while David resists my efforts to persuade him to try a buffalo burger.

"Just think what a great conversation-starter it would be, back in New York or Chicago," I point out to him.

"Actually, I was thinking of all the reasons not to have a buffalo burger," he responds, wrinkling his nose. It didn't occur to me at the time, but he was probably thinking of the mangy buffalo we had seen in Yellowstone Park earlier that morning. I reassure him that I've had buffalo burgers on several occasions, during the summers I spent in Polson, and am no worse off for the experience. He's obviously unconvinced.

"Just think of all those times when you're sitting around with your friends," I point out to him, "and everyone runs out of things to talk about, and they're all just sitting there munching on their hamburgers with nothing to say. Just think how great it will be when you can break the silence by pointing out the great experience you had right here, right now, in beautiful downtown Ennis, on that great day in June 2001 when you had a real, honest-to-God buffalo burger. What could be better than that?"

I guess lots of things could be better, because he ended up having a BLT on toast, with a coke. The waitress couldn't talk either of us into sampling the strawberry pie, and after paying the check, we were off again. As we head north through McAllister, Norris, and Harrison, David starts us off with an album called Pup Tent, from a group called Luna. The lead singer is a native New Zealander named Dean Wareham, which means nothing to me; but David explains to me that he moved to New York (loose translation: he arrived in the Center of the Universe), and that he attended the Dalton School, which David also attended from the age of 3 through his high school graduation at 18 (a concept that I still find stunning, having attended 17 different schools across the United States before staggering off to MIT). Not only that, but Wareham apparently attended Harvard, too, but then decided to join a rock band. I'm not sure whether this factoid is intended as an indictment of Dalton and Harvard, or merely an indication of Wareham's superior talent. But in any case, it's a nice album, with good guitar work and some rather bizarre lyrics: "You stand accused of smoking English cigarettes; that's a provocation if ever one was." Who knows; maybe he learned such phrases at Dalton.

Having traversed the entire length of the Madison Valley, we finally reach Interstate 90 at Cardwell, and David takes over the driving duties. He immediately switches to a new CD, You Can't Hide Your Love Forever, from a Scottish group called Orange Juice. "One of my favorite albums ever," he confides with a big smile, as he pulls onto the Interstate and guns the engine up to 80 mph. We figure that we've got about 350 miles along the Interstate before reaching Coeur d'Alene, and since everyone else is driving 80 in a state that still has no official speed limits, we figure that we might as well do so, too.

Well, Orange Juice may be great, but I don't understand a word they're saying -- so I concentrate instead on the scenery, which alternates between meadows and low mountains. We pass fields of small, intensely yellow flowers; I don't know what they are, but it occurs to me that perhaps it's alfalfa blossoms. In any case, it's a shame that we don't stop to photograph them ... but at 80 mph, it's not trivial to screech to a halt, jump out, take a picture, and then rev back up to full speed again. I don't think it matters to David; I outfitted him with a "standard" camera (you know, the old-fashioned kind, the kind that uses a nearly-obsolete technology called "film" to record pictures), but he hasn't used it at all throughout the trip.

I know that I'm the photo fanatic in the family, so I'm probably obsessing about all of this more than is reasonable ... but it seems that one of the minor tragedies of our fast-paced life is our unwilllingness and/or inability to stop for a while, watch a scene unfold in front of us, and either paint a picture, snap a photograph, or jot down a story about it. David and I expect to cover 500 miles during the course of the day, and I often drive 600, 700, or even 800 miles when I'm traveling alone on one of these marathon trips. But that's only possible if you maintain a steady hour-in, hour-out pace of 60mph, which actually requires driving at 80mph on the highways in order to compensate for the lost time spent filling up the gas tank, eating lunch, and coping with the squalor of gas-station restrooms. At a speed of 80 mph, whatever scene you may have glimpsed out of the corner of your eye is a mile back in the dust before your brain contemplates sending a signal to your foot to apply the brake. By contrast, Lewis and Clark probably took a month, if not longer, to cover 600 miles during their epic journey; they had all the time in the world to write their journals, and draw their pictures.

Well, in any case, we've now moved on to Vic Chestnutt's The Salesman and Bernadette while I'm contemplating all of this. David has apparently been thinking, too, because he pipes up to ask me a question: "What's your pet peeve about driving?" After a moment's thought, I tell him that what drives me nuts is drivers who don't know, or don't care, that the left lane of the highway is the passing lane -- and that they should bloody well stay in the right lane unless they intend to pass someone. It turns out that he has the same pet peeve, and his question was prompted by the frustration of coping with someone who has been blocking his progress in the passing lane for the past several minutes. I ask David whether he learned about all of this in the formal driver-education course that he took in high school, because it has often occurred to me that it was a bit of road-savvy driving skill that somehow didn't get passed on from my generation to his.

David looks at me blankly and says, "Why would I have learned that in driver education? I was taught to drive in Manhattan; there weren't any passing lanes, and nobody was going 80 mph on the streets of the city." Oh. Right. Well, so much for my theory about the failure of inter-generational knowledge transfer.

In the ensuing silence, David switches the CD player to the next album: Albemarle Sound, by Ladybug Transistor. I don't know who these folks are, but anyone creative enough to come up with a name like that deserves my attention. It's lively, cheerful music ... but I find myself drifting off. When I snap back awake again, 20 miles have disappeared behind us, and we're closing in on Missoula. I feel guilty: one of the unspoken rules of riding "shotgun" is that you should stay awake, in order to help ensure that the driver stays awake. And a father should definitely stay awake in case his son needs any assistance; but David has simply turned off the CD player while I napped, and now turns it back on again so that we can listen to the next selection: Eureka, by Jim O'Rourke. It's good music, and it keeps us occupied until we reach the outskirts of Missoula, where we pull in for gas and a snack, and a swap in driving responsibilities.

Roughly 160 miles remain, still on Interstate 90, between Missoula and Coeur d'Alene. I'm wide awake now, additionally rejuvenated by the caffeine in a Diet Coke; Missoula falls behind us, and we head into western Montana toward the Idaho border. O'Rourke finishes his requisite 8 tracks, and the next CD selection turns out to be the sound track from the movie Rushmore. Lots of familiar music here, much of it from the 60s; maybe Proust knew what he was talking about after all. And lo and behold, right in the middle of the album is the "Ooh La La" song that I mentioned at the beginning of this road-warrior entry. I have to be honest: I recognized the tune and the main lyrics, but I couldn't have told you the title of the song, or the group that sang it, if my life was at stake. As a commentary on the ineffectiveness of television commercials, I might also point out that while I can visualize the four vapid actors who sing the song in that auto commercial, I don't have a clue what brand of auto they're promoting. Ah, well, David fills in the details, and I feel like I've added a teeny bit of trivia to my storehouse of knowledge.

The Idaho border suddenly appears, and we cross into the Pacific Time Zone; like magic, we've just gained an hour. And for some reason, this happens to be the moment when I abruptly remember that I drove this same route 31 years ago, on a brooding and rainy summer afternoon. But aside from the difference between today's sun, and the rain of yesteryear, how would anyone look at this stretch of highway and tell that 31 years have passed? An odd thought occurs to me: the tall, thick, dense stands of fir, pine, and spruce trees that line the mountains around us are now 31 years older; but are they 31 years taller? Do trees stop growing at some point, so that a mature forest always looks pretty much the same height? I ask David for his opinion on the matter, but he shrugs; I guess he doesn't consider it a relevant issue.

The final musical selection appears: What Another Man Spills, by a group called Lambchop. Once again, it's a group I've never heard of before; but they manage to put together an interesting assortment of musical instruments -- trumpet, string instruments, baritone sax, and even a vibraphone -- along with some amusing lyrics: "Heaven is a disaster, and you won't get there any faster." Meanwhile, David and I are enjoying the scenery as we move further into Idaho: the landscape and mountainsides are quite different from everything we saw in Montana earlier in the day, and Wyoming yesterday; the thick stands of trees provide ample evidence that we're moving into lumber and forest-products territory. As if to confirm it, two huge logging trucks go thundering by in the opposite direction.

Because of the time change, we find ourselves rolling into Coeur d'Alene at 5:30 instead of 6:30 PM. Perhaps we ought to keep going, and stop in Spokane instead ... but it's clear that neither of us is in the mood to do so, and we start looking for hotels at the first available exit in town. The eventual choice of a Fairfield Inn, is dictated, as it turns out, by the proximity of three of David's favorite restaurants: IHOP, Denny's, and Wendy's. Not my choice for haute cuisine, but one could do worse.

And thus, day 3 comes to a close. Another good day. Muchos gracias, David.

Continue with pt. IV of this series ...