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We stay at the Old Faithful Inn, a colossal century-old structure built almost entirely of native logs and stone. People actually gasp when they enter the lobby for the first time, which soars four cavernous stories. When the 1988 fire decimated the park, firefighters made a last stand at the Inn, training water on its parched wooden exterior so that this exquisite manmade heritage would not perish. They did more than save the hotel itself, a national landmark. They also prevented one of the finest saloons in Western Civilization from going up in smoke. Banked behind the Inn’s lengthy bar are fanciful glass etchings depicting animals in human guise – dancing, drinking, flirting, the whole bizarre cacophony of barroom conduct. Opposite this opaque glass fantasy, mere inches on the other side of wide windows, buffalo serenely graze. Can there be any place else like it on earth? Not having totally abandoned our spirit of adventure, we seek a natural hot tub. Finding warm water isn’t a problem in Yellowstone. Water that won’t literally scald you to death is a far more rare commodity. The luncheon waitress – unlike most national park servers she’s American, not Eastern European – knows of a good spot with plenty of privacy. Her directions come with a personal caution: Tread carefully. Earlier in the summer a group of her friends made a night excursion to this very place. One of her colleagues wandered in the wrong direction – possibly disoriented as a result of something she ingested – fell into a boiling spring and died a pitiful, painful, prolonged death. We drive to the area and walk to the spot through a light rain, which has the effect of driving off potential competition. In a natural excavation just large enough to hold six adults without forcing intimacy we sink into water warmed by a steaming spring and cooled by the adjacent river, a tiny tributary of which can be adjusted for comfort by shifting around the rocks. Saturday, September 15: Decompression day. We take the long drive back to Park City where we eat a wine-intensive dinner at a sushi restaurant. Afterwards there’s a stroll for ice cream. The airlines are back in business and we have every expectation that we’ll go home on the morrow, but it will mean an early rising. Sunday, September 16: The Salt Lake City airport is jammed with people determined to get home, if not to be the first aboard. A very long line forms for the Delta flight, but there is more courtesy per square foot than any of us have seen in ages. A stranger and I strike up conversation. After I ask about his journey he inquires after mine. When I give him the encapsulated version he makes an observation that sums up our whole week. "Experience," he says, "is what you get when you don’t
get what you want."
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