Stories of Winter in Yellowstone

By the fire at Fishing Bridge

For the record, I am ideologically opposed to blogging. I simply do not believe that anything I have to say is of such great importance that I need to fling it into the world, unedited and unfiltered, for the enlightenment of the masses. However, let it be noted that I am currently living 84 miles from a movie theater, restaurant, library, or shopping center—of which 23 miles must be traveled by snowmobile—and that it gets dark at 5:00, leaving me to spend my evenings snowed into an apartment, talking to myself and the mice. Because my personal life already runs like a blog—endless ramblings muttered at the walls and occasional bursts of human interaction, so infrequent that the sound of another voice or the telephone ringing is always startling—I figure a virtual life could only improve my isolated existence. Let it also be noted that I have burdened your email accounts many times over the past few years with tales of bison encounters and pee-cicles, and that many of you have actually requested more stories of my quirky life in Yellowstone.

Thus, before heading north for my fourth winter in Yellowstone, I decided to join the digitized masses and “blog it.” (No, this does not mean I’m joining Facebook—not until I’m post-dissertation, as promised.) I have no expectations of a dedicated fan base, but I’m interested to see what will happen if I try to write a little more frequently about life in the Interior. And, of course, I welcome comments from any living thing, helping me feel more like a socialized human being. Fortunately for you, it looks like my season will be truncated this year, so you don’t have to commit to following my wintertime musings for more than a month. So, without further ado, I invite you to “The Warming Hut.”