I took a ton of photos in Yellowstone. I really didn't expect to - Mike kept telling me that Yellowstone is overrated, and anyways, geysers sounded boring. Frankly, geysers are boring! They look like fireworks without the colorful explosions up above, and without that grotesque and marvelous smell. (I have very fond memories of lying on my back in an amusement park as a teenager dangerously close to where the fireworks were being set off, thrilled by the gunpowder stink washing across my face. Probably sounds disgusting when I describe it now, but it was incredible at the time.)

But oh, somehow I wasn't expecting the prismatic pools and the colorful layers of thermophilic bacteria and such..!

First, something of interest only to me! This tree was right next to our campsite. I spent my bleary morning trying to identify precisely what kind of pine it was. Those proto-cone looking bits were soft and squishy and released pollen when flicked - fascinating!

Old Faithful dissolving into the clouds:

I expected to see dinosaurs chasing me around these pools near Old Faithful:

Or maybe witches:

I kept falling in love with the layers of color and texture of the heat-loving microorganisms near those pools by Old Faithful.

Mike kept asking what I thought the texture would be like if we touched them.

Not soft or hard, I'd think...

In fact, my best guess is that they would feel a lot like mother of vinegar.

Some people eat mother of vinegar, you know.

Can you imagine? And doesn't this stuff look like modern art?

I don't even like most modern art, and I thought this was beyond beautiful. I expect to be inspired by it in my glass work for ages to come.

What, no penguins?

You can see why people have that idiotic urge to wade in this stuff.

Again, the color textures!

Like rust bubbling up out of the earth.

Pools of it.

The water looked deceptively cool and refreshing.

This geyser only erupts when it has examined its priors and executed a cost-benefit calculation and determined that it is rational to do so:

We stopped by Olympia to visit a few friends on our way up from Portland to Seattle. They had galloping chickens, and friendly goats.

Goat beard!

They were very playful.

And eager for treats!

Goat treats.

A little too eager, perhaps.

I find it hard to get bored of eager goat photos.

My friend Erica in Colorado just told me where the phrase "got my goat" comes from. Apparently racing horses often had (or have?) goat companions to keep them calm, so years ago competitors would steal other racer's goats so that their horses would be too upset to race to the best of their ability. Thereby getting their goat!

They didn't seem to mind everyone grabbing their horns to move their heads out of the way as needed. Sadly, I forgot to try to wrestle with one of them while I was there.

Are goats legal in NYC? I need to look into this! I want a pygmy goat in the back yard. I'd put it on a leash and take it for walkies in the dog run in the park. It would be awesome!

Thanks, guys! It was great to see you and your extended charming companions!

I haven't done much non-bee blogging here yet, but my roadtrip this summer seems like a great place to start. I'm driving around out west with my friend Mike this month, visiting people and national parks and exploring a good double-handful of states I've never visited before.

Before road-tripping officially began, though, Dave and I flew into Kansas City on July 5th to visit his great-godmother Marge Webb and my cousin Jen and her family.

Marge took us on a tour of her family's part of Missouri. We saw my favorite kind of hay - marshmallow-shaped bales of it, all in a row!

We saw Marge's ancestral barn.

It actually gave me flashbacks to our trip to Thailand a few years ago!

Can't you imagine Dave as a farm boy?

He headed back to Portland for work a few days ago, and I miss him terribly already.

Marge was a delightful host and a pleasure to visit. She's truly one of the most charming, interesting, and kind people I've ever known.

Here she is, with her ancestral barn.

She showed us her family cemetery, in Miller community, Missouri, in the midst of her acres and acres of farmland. She's picked out her plot already.

"If you decide on the Midwest as your burying place," she told us, "there's space here for you, too!"

We learned that all our families have ancestral post offices. Marge has a building that's still being rented out by a post office now. My grandmother's old house in Hungary was turned into a post office after she was forced to flee the country.

And apparently Dave's family has some historical connection to Turner Station, with its mercantile shop and its post office.

Dave went into the store at Turner Station to inquire about his family history. I was skeptical, but of course it turned out that they had a big book of Turner genealogy lying around to show him. He couldn't find his great-grandparents' names in it, but he saw some name he recognized.

So, it's still a bit hazy on whether there's a real connection there or not. But still.

Does everyone have an ancestral post office? Is this a thing? Before there were taxes and death and stew, there were post offices in the muck.

On July 8th, we flew off to Portland, Oregon. More photos to follow next time I get some decent internet along the road!