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 first stop of the day was to see (besides Old Faithful) one of the most iconic features of Yellowstone: its Grand Canyon and staggering waterfall. Yellowstone River, the longest undammed river in the continental United States, carved this canyon through erosion about 10,000 to 14,000 years ago (making it relatively new in geological terms). The canyon walls are painted in yellows, oranges, and reds from the iron compounds in the rock--as the iron is oxidized, the rocks rust.
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