I Saw the Elephant....

It's been a year since I've posted. Part of that was planned. I just finished a year as Faculty Senate president at my university, and also President of H-Net Council.  During that time, writing anything would could have reflected negatively on my roles at the time, so I opted for quite.  Now, I feel more free to post.

As part of my removing myself from the positions I've held the past year and a half, we took a family vacation across America....and I mean literally across America.

It was popular in the mid-19th century to use the phrase "seeing the elephant" to describe a life-changing event, especially popular with people going West for the first time.  Although a student of the American West from a historical perspective, this was only the time I've really gone to see the Great West. I've driven through to Las Vegas, stopping at Grand Canyon and seen the lower Rockies at Albuquerque (Sangre de Christo mountains) before, but have never been north of New Mexico.  This trip took us from Houston to Glacier Park near Canada, roughly 4,600 miles in 10 days.

The trip up along the full length of the American Rocky Mountains was really something! Two of the sights I've always wanted to see, I finally got to see: Mount Rushmore and Old Faithful. These alone were worth the trip. I've wanted to see Colorado, Devil's Tower, the Little Bighorn and the Black Hills for some time, too.  This was my opportunity.  It was my first trip to the National Parks; it was the first time I stayed in a National Park; the first time I saw live elk, antelope, and buffalo in the wild. It was the first time I drove in the mountains, the first time I saw a glacier, the first time I made a trip of this distance by car.

I took over 900 photographs, and it will take me some time to go through them all.  Besides taking my in-laws to the place where they met, and taking a nice vacation trip, it was a way for me to prepare a course on the history of the American West, and I really think it was good preparation, because I got to see so much of what makes the West the West.