When despair grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
— Wendell Berry, The Peace of Wild Things
Our third day in Rome once again had a very, very early start: we needed to be across town to catch our tour bus to Pompeii at 7 a.m. This day trip, through Walks of Italy, was the second part of my Christmas present from my mom, and it was a highlight of the entire trip.
Read MoreWe passed this turnout every day, as the route from Wapiti and the East Gate into the park took us through Sylvan Pass, which is in the Absaroka Range. This part of the park has one of the higher elevations that you drive through, at 8,524 feet above sea level, so it's naturally chillier, hence why these photos of the Sylvan Lake look like a winter wonderland even though it was in the sixties and seventies in the rest of the park. We saw a lot of cars from California stopped around here to get out and have snowball fights, but after six months of harsh Minnesota winter, I only stopped for the photo op.
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