An entire valley made from rock formations muscular and grand. The muted sound of a loon across Lake Yellowstone. My first visits to Yellowstone were failed attempts by a driven man to consume the park, not to grow close to it, to try to understand it, to love it. There were scrapbooks to fill, and miles to go before I slip in the prints. These folks have traveled to Yellowstone, but they did not journey there.
Every true journey involves a place and an idea.
With salaries hovering close to those of a teacher or a cleric, these men and women have dedicated themselves to something that's plainly more than population figures, nature catalogs, and mapped miles. These men and women may not own the Park, but they are devotedly its trustees, its guardians. Partly, I missed The Yellowstone Association, which anyone can join, and the dedication of the Association volunteers who sell booklets and videos and dispense park tips and insights almost as deftly as the Rangers. Partly, I missed the youth who flock to the park working menial summer jobs at base pay, scooping ice cream or sweeping floors. Their badges identify them by name as well as by home.