they paved paradise and put up a parking lot...

Glacier National Park was one of my favorite stops along our trip purely for the sheer brilliance in the landscape and scenery…

Our morning started with a breakfast of oversized pancakes and extra-greasy hash browns, which was harder for some of us to finish than others… Afterwards, we went to the Bozeman co-op where we bought some groceries as well as hot dogs and potatoes to cook for dinner later.  After a quick stop to get some firewood, we made our way into the park and located the perfect campground (with three pretty boulders) and began to build our fire.  Once it was roaring, a group of students and Andi went on a scenic drive through the park while the rest of us stayed at the site and played an intense game of Wiffleball.  While we were playing, a couple of campground rangers notified us that we were being too noisy and disturbing some of the nearby campers.  This surprised me for a couple of reasons: 1.  None of the other campers had said anything to us directly let alone come out of their trailers.  2.  We were in the middle of a national park – an area specific to tourist families, complete with children.  3.  It was about 2:00 in the afternoon.  Nonetheless, we put away our plastic bat and ball, and then were told to relocate to another area of the park, where there were fewer campers.  So we put out our fire, supported the park’s “leave no trace” policy, and then headed toward the other area. 

While I was somewhat bothered by the situation, the end result was completely worth the trouble – as we drove up to the other side of the campgrounds, we discovered a gorgeous rock beach area where gentle ripples of pure glacial water scattered around colored pebbles of red, blue and green.  Towering mountains formed the backdrop of the scenery with a slight fog resting gingerly around the peaks that attempted to peer through the bottoms of clouds.  I stood completely consumed by this aesthetic beauty for what felt like forever and yet felt that no amount of time spent staring could do this view justice. 

As we turned to walk back towards the car all I could focus on was how much of this beauty once existed in the places we now inhabit.  Joni Mitchell’s lyric, “they paved paradise and put up a parking lot,” came to mind as I stared at the rigid blocks of pavement under my feet that now seemed so static compared to the spirited movements of the water and air behind me.  I simultaneously felt envious of past generations and their broader experiences of the beautiful, natural places that once encompassed the parking lots of the modern world, pity for future generations and the inevitable development that would soon absorb the natural beauty that still exists, and hopeful yet, that this generation and its proclaimed activism may be able to save some of these spaces so that years from now the people may share in the aesthetic experience that the world provided me today…