Don Quixote in Yellowstone

September 23, 2022

Jackson, Wyoming

Funny, the things you don’t think of when you’re sitting in the middle of a herd of bison.

I’ve been traveling for the last two weeks in the wide open spaces of Montana, Wyoming, and Alberta, visiting national parks and nearby places of historical significance having to do with American Indians. The scenery is sometimes wild and spectacular, and I’m so grateful to the National Park system and visionaries such as Horace Albright and Stephen Mather for preserving some of what is left of the natural beauty of this continent.

As appreciative as I’ve been of the grandeur of Waterton, Glacier, Yellowstone, and Grand Tetons national parks, I’ve also been saddened by the immense suffering experienced by the first inhabitants of this country as they faced invasion and extermination from immigrants from the eastern U.S. and from Europe.

At the Little Bighorn battlefield site in south central Montana, I marveled at the courage of Crazy Horse and Gall as they rushed to defend their Lakota and Cheyenne village from a genocidal attack by General Custer and the 7th Cavalry.

In Yellowstone and just east of it I followed part of the path of one of my boyhood heroes, Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, where he led some 800 of his people from their homeland in Oregon through Idaho, Yellowstone, Wyoming, and Montana in an epic journey of sick, wounded, and exhausted men, women, and children fleeing relentless pursuit by the U.S. Army.

My sorrow has at times been intermixed with impatience and irritability at frequent road construction delays and inconsiderate drivers on crowded parks roads, and occasionally listening to the rantings on right wing radio stations in Montana and Wyoming. I also have a problem with some far left idealogues, but there don’t seem to be any of those in this part of the country.

Add to all of that my over-indulgence in news from Ukraine, and at times my negativity on this trip has felt overwhelming.

One bright spot in the news has been the coverage of the funeral of Queen Elizabeth, a woman I greatly admired for her sense of duty and service to her nation. And for 70 years! The pageantry, rituals, and elegance of her funeral remind us that a nation is nobler when it celebrates it shared identity rather than indulging in divisive tribalism.

At one point I got tired of indulging my own petty complaints and resentments and decided to listen to some uplifting music as I drove the sometimes clogged roads of Yellowstone. My 2004 Toyota Camry is one of the last models to have a cassette deck, so I was able to listen to a tape I had made of the movie version of the Broadway musical Man of La Mancha, starring Peter O’Toole as Don Quixote and Sophia Loren as his idealized lady, Dulcinea.

I love the music and the story of a man driven to madness by “man’s inhumanity to man.” Don Quixote’s solution is to become a knight errant, to right all wrongs, to follow the unreachable star of his impossible dream to make the world a better place. His glorious quest is intensely sincere and idealistic, but at the end of the movie, as he lays dying and disillusioned by his failure to fulfill his dream, Dulcinea reminds him that he taught her that it doesn’t matter if you win or lose, only that you do your best to follow your quest until you die.

In other words, intention is everything, along with a sincere effort.

It made me wonder whether it might be wiser for me to learn to make peace with the road construction delays, the selfish drivers, and yes, a delusional despot in Moscow and a would-be autocrat in Mar a Lago.

Which brings me to the bison herd.

I was driving from the northern part of Yellowstone, headed south past the Lamar Valley through gorgeous country, singing along with Man of La Mancha, when I encountered a large herd of bison coming toward me on the road. There is nothing unusual about bison on the roads in this park, and they often cause traffic jams as tourists like me slow down or stop to take their pictures. But this herd was quite large – hundreds and hundreds of buffalo, or bison as they are more accurately called – and all cars on my side of the highway were forced to come to a halt. It turned out that the herd was so large that it caused a backup of cars and trucks for several miles in the other direction, so a park vehicle was attempting to drive the herd up the highway and past my car. But a large truck behind me, unaware of the park ranger’s vehicle herding the animals, began impatiently blaring his loud horn hoping to drive the animals back in the direction of the park ranger’s truck. Trapped between the flashing lights of the ranger’s truck and the blaring horn of the trucker behind me, the bison started to panic and stampede.

Here I was, Don Quixote in a bison stampede, laughing delightedly as I snapped photos of running bulls and cows. My cares were gone, as I lived in the moment.

Eventually the trucker behind me saw the flashing lights of the ranger’s truck, realized that his horn blasts were counterproductive and stopped his angry trumpeting, thereby allowing the herd to calm down and move along their way.

I suppose I’ll always struggle with my inner demons, just as Don Quixote tilted at windmills and battled with imaginary sorcerers.

But was Dulcinea right when she reminded Don Quixote in the movie (not in the book) that it doesn’t matter whether you win or lose (the defense of Indian villages and lands, the war in Ukraine), only that you do what you can to follow your quest (for peace and harmony)? Is doing your best enough in a world gone mad? Are we ennobled by reaching for our unreachable star? Or does it lead to cynicism, frustration, and despair?

All I can do for now is try to stay positive for the remainder of my tour of the wild West. And that shouldn’t be too hard to do in this land of jagged, sculpted mountains, and blue rivers and lakes set among yellow meadows and valleys. But if I find myself getting cranky again, I’ll call upon my inner Don Quixote and my impossible dream, and sing my way back to California.