Chuck Versus a Baby Geyser

 

    Sometimes the worst kind of danger is the kind in plain sight.

      Trekking through Yellowstone National Park, we were well aware of the wild animals--the bison and the elk and the bear and even the wolves who lived all around us. 

      I knew, for example, that by the mid-1900's the wolves who lived in Yellowstone had been killed. In the 1940's park managers, biologists, and conservationists campaigned to reintroduce the wolf back into the park. The Endangered Species Act of 1973 was passed, and in 1995, gray wolves came home, but it was a rocky homecoming. 

      Years ago, I remember hearing the howl of a wolf as I walked through the park. Nowadays, to even see a wolf you need to use a high powered telescope at dusk, and you need to know where to look. Believe me, you don't want a close encounter with a wolf.  

       Bears also are more difficult to spot. Occasionally, with good binoculars, you can see a bear foraging for food. If you're lucky. 

       But you need to be safe. Stay clear of the wild animals. 

       Imagine, now, a different kind of danger. What makes Yellowstone so unique is the plethora of mud pots, fumaroles and geysers that are scattered throughout the magnificent landscape. Lying in wait for the unsuspecting visitor or rascal cat.

       What exactly is a geyser? It's a hot spring that contains boiling water. Ouch. It's so hot, the water gushes upwards. The force generated by the heat produces this torrent of boiling water and steam that shoots up hundreds of feet. 

       Sometimes you hear gurgling as a warning before the water shoots upwards. Other times, the water explodes with no warning.

       Sometimes geysers follow a schedule like Old Faithful. Another favorite is Castle Geyser who shoots off killer jets of water on a regular basis:

 

       Other geysers follow their own internal time clock.

       You get lulled into thinking you're safe as you stroll past these geysers who seem dormant to the naked eye. They're not gurgling. There's no steam. You barely stop to take a closer look or give them a passing glance.

      Every geyser in the park has a name, but one in particular--not a very memorable one--I'll call "Chucky's Geyser."

       For once, Chuck was being a good kid. Not the usual rascally cat he can be. He was walking along beside us, on the boardwalk--the safe zone--as far as I was concerned. Nothing much was happening.

        We rounded the corner. A woman came towards us with her dog. A white dog wearing a greenish-yellow collar. Well, this very cute dog barked--not a friendly "hello" type of bark, but a more "what are you doing on this boardwalk" bark. 

      Chucky stood his ground. 

      The dog growled.

      Chucky has a meow, but it's a disappointing meow. He was short-changed in the meow department. I suspect that's the reason why he didn't respond back. Instead, he leapt off the boardwalk, away from the barking dog, and hightailed it in the direction of the dormant geyser.

        Or, let me rephrase . . . in the direction of the geyser we thought was dormant. 

      It wasn't. A cloud of steam suddenly appeared, swirling around the mouth of the geyser. It was as if Chucky's jump on the ground acted as weight on a lever that turned that darned geyser on. 

      It's never safe to get off the boardwalk. You could be jumping smack in the middle of a mud pot and get sucked down and that's it. Dan and I made a quick assessment. The ground looked dry and hard. Dan, my always hero, ignoring the steam that jutted into the air, climbed down to get Chuck, who seemed quite oblivious to the coming danger.

   

  

      I unhelpfully called, "Get him before the whole thing blows."

      Much ado about nothing. That was our assessment later.

      Dan scooped Chuck up and brought him back. Meanwhile, the barking/growling dog was so startled by the eruption of the geyser, that not another bark or growl came out.  

      It could have been a terrible, horrible disaster, with boiling water, laced with acid, raining down on top of Chuck and Dan, but it wasn't. Instead by the time water shot out after the steam, hero and cat were back on the boardwalk. We stayed for a few more minutes and watched the amazing show that only nature can provide.

      "Chucky's Baby Geyser," I said finally.

      "Aptly named," Dan agreed.

      "You know, if that dog hadn't barked and Chucky hadn't jumped down in protest, we would have missed it."

       We turned to admire Chuck, our almost hero cat, only to discover that he wasn't looking at the geyser. Oh, no. He was looking in the opposite direction. It turns out that the barking dog was a girl dog. Chuck was now in the process of making eyes at this girl dog with the lovely collar and she was making eyes back at him. Love was in the air. Go figure.

          

           

               

         

Chuck Spots a Bison Burger on Steroids

 

    Yellowstone National Park is a big place. Correction. It is a big, terrifying, dangerous and beautiful place. While you, the innocent tourist with your over-eager sometimes hero cat (a legend in his own mind) are admiring the views,

you could get gored by a bison, if you get too close.

    This, I think, is the main problem when you're a tourist surrounded by wild animals. There are no electric fences or moats separating the animals from the tourists. When you're in Yellowstone, you're in the Wild West.

    As we traveled through the park, safely ensconced in our vehicle, we saw hundreds, probably thousands of bison grazing, minding their own business.

 

   

 Yellowstone is the only place in the United States where bison have lived continuously since prehistoric times. The park's population comprising the nation's largest population on public land--approximately 500,000. At one time, the bison were near extinction. But President Theodore Roosevelt came to the rescue.

    Years ago, I came too close to a bison in a parking lot. Close up, you can see how big they actually are. On average, a male bison stands between five and six feet tall and can be eleven feet long. Their horns alone are two feet long. And they weigh between 2200 and 2500 pounds. They are the largest mammal in North America. But don't be deceived. If you've ever watched them lumber along, you could think to yourself, ah, in a pinch, I could outrun this guy anytime. But you couldn't be more wrong. 

    

     Bison are known for spinning and changing direction quickly. Despite their weight, they can jump fences. They are strong swimmers. And they can run up to 35 mph. 

     

      I knew some of these bison facts when we were in Yellowstone, stopped and got out for a photo shoot. A group of bison were far enough away that I considered us safe as houses. For once, I could relax and just admire the view.  

     Chuck was in seventh heaven. He was all sniff, sniff, and more sniffing as he pawed around, trying to make sense of the ground underneath him. There were a few bushes that attracted his interest. I watched him for awhile and convinced he couldn't get into any mischief, I glanced away. Just for a second.

    Chuck zeroed in on the stream bordering us on one side. I heard the gurgling in the background and didn't think anything of it. It only added to the beauty of the nature scene before us. 

    But I was wiser now. After the boardwalk experience, I'd learned my lesson and wasn't about to let the rascal out of my sight. 

    He's a clever one. He sauntered in a diagonal direction--a little left, then a little right, but from the big view, it was clear to see the belly boy was heading toward the stream. Hmn. Would he jump in? Was he only looking for a drink? 

    He stopped when he was pretty darned close. Maybe two feet from the water. But I was right there behind him. 

    "Chuck," I said, "if you think you're going to jump into that stream or get close enough to get a drink of . . ."

    I saw the bison at that moment. On the other side of the stream. I kept my iPhone steady and began shooting, all the while holding onto Chucky, just in case.

    My first thought was--there were two bodies of water separating us. So we were pretty safe. Bison Boy was busy drinking water and not thinking about us at all. This was the closest I'd gotten so far to one of these magnificent animals so I could really see him. I dawdled. I'll stay here just a minute, I said as I made my recording. There was just something so breathtaking about the moment.  

    A little voice in my head then said, "If he decides to charge you, you'll be a goner. Just at the moment when you realize he's coming for you, he'll already be there. That's how fast they are. Is it worth the risk?"

    I know that bison have poor eyesight, but they have excellent hearing and an excellent sense of smell. It was June. They were losing their winter coats. It was all down to whether he felt threatened or not.

    Then I remembered. Look at his tail. If it's down and wagging, he's happy. If it's pointed straight up, you're in big trouble, and the bison is about to charge. I pulled Chucky closer to me, even as he was squirming to get away. 

    The bison's tail was down and wagging back and forth.

    "You are one lucky Chucky," I said. Nevertheless, I moonwalked back from the stream, holding Chucky in my arms. You never know what can happen when you travel with a rascal cat.

    

    

Chuck's Almost Trip to Yellowstone's Hell

 

    Sometimes it makes no sense whatsoever to bring a cat with you when you are on tour, especially when you go to a place like Yellowstone National Park.

      Let me explain. 

      Yellowstone intersects three states--mostly Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. It covers 3500 square miles and is fondly called a wilderness recreation area, home to wild animals like grizzly bears, wolves, bison, elk, and antelope. It has one of the largest petrified forests and over 250 waterfalls. Plus canyons, mountain ranges, and lakes. 

      All of that makes Yellowstone a dangerous place to visit. Especially with a cat. But when Chucky announced he wanted to see the very thing that makes this park so unique, well, we should have turned around and went home. 

      Yellowstone contains at least 10,000 thermal features including geysers, hot springs, mud spots and fumaroles. In short, these are like cracks into the inner earth allowing gasses and boiling liquids to reach the surface. 

      Touring this part of Yellowstone is no joke. If you wander off the boardwalk by accident, fall into a thermal feature, stick your finger into what appears to be an innocent puddle of water (which tourists have done) . . . well, let's just say you may not live to tell a happy story or any story at all.

    

   "Should we even take him (the rascal cat) with us?" I was having second thoughts even from the beginning. I know that most people think of Yellowstone and imagine subalpine forests, lodgepole pines,  and grassy meadows. It can be a beautiful place. But that's not where we were going.

    "All I can say is--you'll have to tell him," Dan declared.

    Needless to say, I chickened out. Chuck had his heart set on seeing the part of Yellowstone that some visitors described as going into the depths of hell or to put it more mildly into another world. So we packed him up, read him the riot act, and warned him to stay on the boardwalk at all times. 

      The first image we saw when we arrived at this dangerous part of Yellowstone sent the message loud and clear.

    At first I thought it was the bones of some animal, who had tried to escape some horrible fate, and had not made it.

    "Get a hold of yourself," Dan said. "It's 

just some branches."

     He was right, of course. 

   But the landscape only became bleaker with each step along the boardwalk that we took.

      We began to feel like, indeed, we'd landed on another planet. I was reminded of those early photos of the moon landings. Those stark ground photos which showed no signs of life. This landscape before us was different but equally eerie. No plants. A few dead trees. But no sign of life. 

      Of course, the only difference was this landscape had a kind of weird beauty caused by the variety of colors on the dead earth. Aquamarine to dark blue. Yellow. Orange. Red brown to burgundy. Even I got caught up in taking photos. A kind of beauty existed in the dead surroundings. 

     That is when it happened. And it was all my fault. I was supposed to be keeping my eye on Chuck. I took on the responsibility because Dan loves to take photos. I figured I'd be the logical one to make sure Chuck stayed on the boardwalk, the safe space. As we ambled along, I reasoned, there would be no birds, no animals to distract him. 

     What could he possibly find interesting out here in this barren landscape?

     I constantly underestimate this cat.

     As I looked around now and did not see him, my heart skipped a beat.

     Please God, no.

     I peered out over the landscape to see if somehow he'd wandered out there. Was is possible?

         

     I couldn't see him anywhere. No Chucky. 

     Of course, I imagined the worst. Somehow, without our noticing, he'd spotted something or smelled something and jumped off the boardwalk. He was down there somewhere. 

    Dan had another idea. "Maybe he crawled underneath the boardwalk." 

       

      Some cats like to be high and some cats prefer to be low. Chuck is one of those cats who prefer to be on ground level. We knelt down and looked underneath the boardwalk. No Chucky.

     

       I had to remain positive. "He usually listens to me . . ."

     

     "Except when he doesn't," Dan whispered.

     "I told him a thousand times not to get off this boardwalk."

    "We'll split up. You go this way. I'll retrace our steps and see if he's behind us."

     I raced ahead. The boardwalk curved to the left. The landscape remained much of the same, but with the fear of losing Chucky, I hardly noticed.

       I made promises to myself. If I find this darned rascal cat -- alive -- I promise I'll be the best mom in the world. I'll take such good care of him. I'll never let him out of my sight. From now on . . .

       An orange and white mass sat serenely on the boardwalk about 100 feet ahead of me.

      "Chucky," I screamed out his name. 

      There he was. As calm as can be. Staring out at the bleak landscape, as if under some kind of spell. He'd run up ahead and now saw something, who knows what out there, and was just sitting back, enthralled.

     Dan came up behind me. He pointed to something in the distance. 

"I think it's a hawk. Can you see it?"

     But I was too worked up to even want to see it. "That darned cat.

He'll be the death of me," I said to no one in particular because the 

    

     boys were distracted and were not listening. 

     "It's a red tailed hawk," Dan said to Chucky, who nodded. "They're common in the park. But not in this area. Good job of spotting."

      And, darn it, if that cat didn't start purring, imagining himself, no doubt, as some kind of hero. It didn't matter to him that he'd almost given me, his human mom, a heart attack. 

     Show off.

Fearless Chuck-Bird Spotter Extraordinaire

 

    Before Chuck fell head over heels in love with a raven, our rascal cat had a quite different experience with a bird, one we didn't anticipate, not in a million years.

    It all started the June we flew out to Montana to spend a week in Yellowstone National Park. We were staying in a small boutique hotel in Gardiner, the town closest to the park, when one afternoon we decided to go for a walk. We had our cell phone cameras, of course, and binoculars just in case we spotted any wildlife. We were due to start our tour in Yellowstone the next day with Gene, a true mountain man, and we'd heard through the grapevine that animals from Yellowstone park often wandered into Gardiner so we were prepared. After all, there are no fences separating the park from the town.

    Chucky came along, of course. He loves being outside. It wasn't long before we had our first wildlife sighting--a female elk, an extraordinary sight indeed. We're used to seeing squirrels and foxes in New Jersey. Maybe a bobcat once in awhile. And once in a great while, a bear. You never see an elk.

    We learned later that it's quite common for elk to leave the park, especially the mamas who are pregnant and about to deliver baby elk. They know the town is safer than the park from most predators. Chuck was literally in seventh heaven. Initially, we kept our distance, but Chuck had no problem moving closer. We've always considered him to be a kind of ambassador. Make friends, not enemies. That's his motto. 

    "Do you think it's safe?" I asked Dan. After all, a female elk can weigh up to 650 pounds. It is the second largest species of deer after the moose.

    "Let's wait and see what happens."

    "Okay," I said, even though not knowing very much about elk I began to wonder how would she react if she felt threatened. Would she charge without notice, crushing my poor, fearless cat? 

    But sure enough, as fearless Chuck moved closer, the elk, on notice, tilted her head this way and that as if considering how to handle this short bundle of orange and white fur. Seconds passed.  Then she leaped into the distance. She wanted nothing to do with Chuck. I heaved a sigh of relief. 

    I wondered how Chucky would take to being abandoned so abruptly, but I didn't have to worry. He was already gazing upwards, distracted. Something had flown onto a tree limb. Dan pulled out his binoculars.

    "I don't see anything . . ." Dan reported.

    "Something must be there. Chuck's been staring at that spot--"

    "Wow. Look at that. You should see this bird. It looks tropical."

    "Tropical?"

    Remember, we were in Montana. There is nothing tropical about Montana. Men wear cowboy hats and boots. Almost everyone walks with some kind of swagger. I felt overly dressed up because I wore mascara. 

    I grabbed the binoculars and peered through the lens. Sure enough, this was not your usual blue jay or robin. This bird was bright yellow,  and had black wings and an orange-red head.

    Chucky moved closer. The bird flitted to a nearby branch, and we lost sight of it. 

    "There it is," I said, following Chucky, whose glance tracked it like a laser beam.

    Dan pulled out his camera. I knew nothing about which birds lived in Montana, but if I had to guess, this had to be an unusual bird. 

    For the next half hour, no kidding, Chuck, Dan and I followed that 

darned bird. It flitted from branch to branch, and then much to my surprise landed on top of a rooftop before hopping down on a branch near a house. Dan was able to get some distant photos. 

    It seemed every time we honed in closer, the bird took off and flew further away. We still had no idea what kind of bird it was. 

    Later that evening, we went across the street to Pizza, Pasta, and Salad, the one restaurant that was still open, only to discover the only thing they were serving was pizza. As we waited in line for a table, we met a couple from down south who'd come to Yellowstone to bird watch. (Sometimes I think the universe deliberately sets things up so that you get some of the things you want.)

    You can guess what happened next. Dan whipped out his cell phone and showed the woman the photo of the bird Chucky had spotted. She nearly died. "I've been here in Yellowstone National Park for two weeks," she said, "looking for that very bird. That's a Western Tanager. How did you ever find it? They love to remain hidden."

    We could have told her the truth, but sometimes it's too hard to explain about Chucky. So we told her a version of what happened and left Chuck out of the story entirely. Excited that we'd actually spotted the bird nearby, she decided on the spot to postpone her trip back home so she could see the bird in person and get some photos. 

    Later, back at the hotel, Dan googled the Western Tanager, feeling like we'd spotted some kind of celebrity bird.

    "You're not going to believe this. The Western Tanager is a songbird, part of the Cardinal family."

    Chuck sat up when he heard that. 

    "If you actually spot one of these birds, and it's not easy, that lady was right, it means that change is coming your way. It's the universe's way of telling you to let go of things that aren't going well in your life. It's a time for a new beginning."

    We both looked over at our hero cat. Was seeing this bird a mere coincidence, or was someone through Chuck trying to tell us something?

    "Chuck, I want to ask you something . . ."

    Dan touched my arm. "Let it go, Kate."

    Chuck, oblivious to our existential angst, let out a big yawn and then stretched out his paw and fell instantly asleep.

Yeah, for Chuck a bird is a bird, unless, of course, it's a raven.