Hello Yogi Hello Booboo

Tonight my memory brought me back to my 2006 holiday of a lifetime.

Imagine the excitement contained in me when I finally stepped foot in Yellowstone Park, USA. This was where Yogi Bear came from, the brown bear wearing a green tie and a hat that appeared on Huckleberry Hound show with his best friend Boo Boo. Of course, the cartoons were based in Yellowstone Park, although they called it Jellystone Park but everybody knew they meant the Yellowstone National Park. The oldest park in the world, declared by US Congress as a national park for the enjoyment of everyone since 1872.

We spent almost a week there staying in a small cabin, freezing our butts off every night and only touching the tip of the iceberg, barely covering half of the park. It's so large it extends into 3 states - Wyoming largely, Montana and Idaho. We flew in really late after a big mix-up with the airlines at a small airport in Jacksonhole, picked up our 4WD & drove into the park on a 2.5hrs journey. You can read about all the attractions of the park on the internet but what I really want to talk about is the influence it had on me.

In general, I fell in love with US national parks the minute I was introduced to Yosemite National Park in California back in 2001. Ever since then I make it a point to go back to US to cover other national parks because each one of them presented something unique and different that makes me feel life is all worth it even if everything else would fail. Once I immersed myself into the nature of meadows, wildlife, lakes, craters, snowfields, birdlife, mountain ranges, valleys, lush forest, burnt forest, summits, cabins, geysers, rangers, streams, waterfalls, hot pools, trees, flowers, I knew I was never the same person again. I feel magic, majestic proportions, precise calculations, unimaginable stories & history - it makes me feel like a kid waking up on a christmas morning full of anticipation for what I may find at the bottom of the christmas tree. All I could do is drop my jaw with awe, and thanked God over and over again for bringing me there.

Since Yosemite National Park, I have been to Zion National Park, Sequoia National Park, Olympic National Park, Mt St Helen National Park, Crater National Park, Grand Canyon National Park and Mt Rainier National Park in my 3 or 4 other US trips. One of the most significant moments in world's history I had spent in one of the parks. When the first plane hit the first of the twin towers in Manhattan, I was making my hike up a 6hours hike on Grand Canyon from the plains to the top. Whilst I was walking, we made small talk with passing strangers and they asked me if I have heard about a plane going into the twin towers. I didnt believe what I heard only to witness that evening the second plane going into the second of the twin towers.

Somehow Yellowstone National Park was different, it's on the world map, we studied about the Old Faithful Geyser that erupts every 91mins in geography lesson in Malaysian schools. Boy oh boy! It's my most favourite place on earth - it's where I first saw two coyotes in front of our car, my first sight of geysers after geysers, beautiful emerald / turquoise/ opal clear coloured thermal pools, my first wild black bear (so close we could touch it but the minute it makes a sudden move, everyone ran), my first big moose, my first herd of buffaloes taking their time to cross the road and my first moose burger.

Ever since, it changed me. I knew in order to get me back on track whenever I get too drawn into work or had too much dealing with human complex emotions, or to be unstuck, to open up my mind, to draw in new ideas, to find hope again and to feel alive again is to just spend time with nature. When I do that, just being outside in the nature helps to channel all the memories and experiences I had at the national parks back into the present moment. All the wonderful feelings that were awakened in those national parks would keep rushing back in and I would feel refreshed all over again.