The Vacation…
When my parents got a divorce I was only six, and although I didn’t understand everything that was going on… I did notice one thing that happened: I went on two vacation each summer. My mother would take me somewhere in the summer, and my father would take me somewhere in the summer.
One year my father and I decided to take a Western Vacation. We decided to stop at as many states and major cities that we could possibly stop at. The vacation was going to last just a little over two weeks, and it would be a vacation that I would never forget…
We headed off to travel though Chicago and head to South Dakota. We were headed to South Dakota to visit Mount Rushmore. The travel was fun. We would play the A-B-C game during the day, and if I was awake at night, we would play Pediddle. We arrived to Mount Rushmore, and as we took the stairs up to the main deck overview, we noticed the heavy fog that was everywhere. In fact, the fog was so thick that you couldn’t even see much past the deck to begin with. We were both sadden by the fact that we would not be able to see Mount Rushmore, because we were only passing through, and not spending the night here.
We traveled on to Yellowstone Nation Park. We stayed here just for a few days. We have already been to Yellowstone the year before, so we decided to just visit for a few days this time. We went to see the hot springs and watch good ‘ol Faithful shoot her hot steam. We went to a few visiting centers and did some small tours.
My father had a camper shell on his truck. As we were leaving Yellowstone, I decided to take a nap in the back, however; I was woken early when the truck hit a small bump and rocked me. My eyes opened up slow… still tired… and I finally decided to look around to see where we were. I noticed that the truck was moving very slowly and trees were to the left of us. I then heard a noise and immediately looked right. What I saw walking along the truck was breathtaking. Walking horizontally to the truck, less than ten feet from me, was a Bison (also known as the American Buffalo).
I could see his eyes looking dead into mine as I got closer to look at him. I can see his nostrils vibrate as he breathed in and out. His body looked all muscle and his fur smelled like a dog after swimming in the local lake all day. He stood tall. Easily the height of the truck. One look at this animal… and you would be convinced to not mess with him.
It wasn’t just this one Bison that was walking next to the road. It was a herd of them. In single file. The reason we were moving slowly was because up ahead, the Bison were crossing to the other side of the street and headed off to an unknown destination. There were easily twenty of these big fellas. Every single one of them standing their ground and not-at-all worried about the vehicles next to them.
To Be Continued…
robert1ee
