Photo: Ronan Donovan / Courtesy of Lone Mountain Ranch
In fact, we are so sold on the glory of nature that when my travel companion and I leave what feels like our three-day honeymoon at Lone Mountain Ranch, we evolve our plans so that we can almost immediately return to the park. We are two city-dwelling fashion editors—not exactly outdoors aficionados—but Randy has fully convinced us that we need to see the other half of Yellowstone (the park is divided into two main loops, and a day is only really enough to visit one). On the recommendation of a friend who spent her childhood summers there, we drive over to Chico Hot Springs—a resort with far fewer frills than Lone Mountain, but which is simply great nonetheless—which comprises a series of rooms, lodges and cabins built around two geothermally-heated pools. Backing onto the bar, and staying open until 11 p.m., the pools remain filled with men wearing their cowboy hats in the pool and reading Bibles on loungers late into the night, who will happily explain the rules of shuffleboard, or their complicated feelings about the division between church and state. We are delighted; we extend our stay.
Despite the fact that, without Randy leading the way, we get a flat tire moments before arriving back in the park, our second trip to Yellowstone is as good as the first (not least because we now come equipped with his understanding of the landscape). Endless hours spent in a remote mechanics shop, and an extensive (albeit picturesque) trip to trade our rental, mean that we arrive at sunset—just in time to see the Grand Prismatic Spring (the largest hot spring in America, and the third largest in the world) transform into what appears to be a celestial body, its vivid rainbow basin just so unspeakably beautiful in the fading evening light that I burst into tears. We stay through the evening, until the park is pitch black and near-empty, to watch Old Faithful—apparently a particularly notable geyser—erupt with clouds of steam and columns of boiling water that we illuminate with torchlight. I’m under a week into my new life, and it appears I am fully invested in the wonder of the West. I hardly even bother blow-drying my hair on the wall-mounted hairdryer when I get back to Chico. (I do miss the Dyson, but I decide I can simply tuck it under my Stetson.)
