I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to meet my friends Satoru and Ariana, visiting scholars from Kyoto, Japan and Bologna, Italy. It was just a pleasure to see them around during the day, and it was their motivation and Ari’s planning that really made these trips happen. Otherwise, I’m sure I would have just assumed I’d go another time. Yellowstone was so out of this world, and it felt special in a way to see it during the winter. While we were far from being the only visitors, there was the distinct quietness that always accompanies a few feet of snow on the ground.

Sadly my phone/camera got annihilated by a wave while rounding a point on the Olympic coast a few weeks later and I lost sooo many photos of some crazy thermal formations. Luckily, I do have some of my friend’s pictures and some that I guess uploaded automatically.