Bed, Breakfast, Wildlife, and Cousins

Murray and I took a long weekend in Yellowstone.  We flew into Bozeman and stayed at the Voss Inn Friday night.  We toured the strip in Bozeman.  Everyone says it is like Boulder used to be 20 years ago and I can see that.  The most memorable part of the evening was at the adult toy store.  There are completely pedestrian reasons that Isaac and Murray might find themselves in such an establishment after the local Walgreens has closed.  Even if I am not at liberty to disclose such boring details. 

What we found that we weren’t looking for was hand blown glass dildos.  Murray had a glass blowing studio for a while.  I helped her build it and knew something about glass blowing so I was curious if they used normal techniques that leave punte marks on the bottom.  When you are blowing glass, you transfer from the blow pipe to a punte to shape the blown end of the final product.  It leaves a separation mark on the bottom.  Most glass you buy at Wal-Mart isn’t hand blown and lacks this little imperfection on the bottom. 

Apparently the dildo selection wasn’t made in large enough quantities to warrant full mechanized production techniques and did have punte marks.  Murray couldn’t imagine anyone putting something glass, that might crack, in their… crack.  The woman at the counter told us they were pyrex to reduce the risk.  Pyrex uses somewhat different processes.  As we went around the corner of the display case, we found they had hand blown butt plugs as well.  It is funny you add hand blown to the phrase and it actually sounds less lewd. 

We were curious about the prices.  Apparently these were objects de’ art and came with commensurate prices.  Things got exceptionally surreal, like a scene from the book Bonk, as Murray and the woman at the counter got into a discussion about whether you would actually spend that kind of money on a toy and then just leave it on the shelf as a display item.  Their consensus was that this was functional art.  I suppose there is wildlife all the way from Bozeman to Yellowstone… 

The husband that made breakfast for us, had grown up in what was then Rhodesia now Zimbabwe.  It was interesting to hear firsthand about things I only read of in the Economist.  He had worked as a tour guide in Zimbabwe and then Botswana after his family was forced off their farm.  He met his wife when she came out on a trip.  I have actually known a couple other people that have met spouses while being a tour guide.  I suppose being a young guy in a position of authority in a fun environment goes a long ways.  I hadn’t really considered that there is more than just the mating ritual of the Rhinoceros going on in such tours.

We also met another traveler at the table.  Murray asked him what he did for a living.  When he said “Solid State Physicist” she replied “Well that kind of ends a conversation.”  The old gent nodded and then he and I talked for 20 minutes about solid state physics while Murray pretended to listen.  He was working with halfnium at a Penn State lab and was in Bozeman to give a lecture. 

So the Voss Inn of Bozeman was good, but we liked the uncluttered clean feel of the West Yellowstone Bed and Breakfast.  We arrived during Sky’s 7^th birthday party.  We headed off four our afternoon guided kayak tour.  My cousin arrived while we were out with her boyfriend and teenage son.  We went for dinner and back to the B+B and discussed schools, spirituality, relationships and family.  She is a new grade school principal which comes with its own book of drama that can be entertaining.

The next day the five of us piled into the suburban we rented and went through the lower loop of the park.  Our guide Dave from Yellowstone Alpen Guides was great, literally a fountain of information (pun intended). 

I think the only wildlife in the park we didn’t see were bobcat, moose and lynx.  We saw coyote, grizzly, wolf attacking bison, eagles, duck, swan, elk and on and on.  But the image of boiling pits of acidic gray mud gurgling out of the rock with plumes of sulfur steam in the air at dragon’s mouth will probably stay with me longer.  I should have saved the Hades references I used on the Teatro Colon for the thermal activity in Yellowstone.  I don’t know how many hellish things I can see that are so cool.  My sense is that if I see something hellish in Guatemala it won’t be nearly so good.  Something to look forward to I suppose.