I wasn't expecting it to feel so much like home.

I spent an entire year in Scotland, traveling, studying, avoiding studying, and yet it never really felt like home. It felt more like a glorified, working vacation. Get up, think about work, go be tourists, come back, do some work, go be locals at the grocery store (seriously, you can tell so much about a culture by perusing the supermarket). The flat, while decent and wonderfully overpriced, never felt like home; it hovered somewhere between weekly vacation rental and dorm room. Regardless of which end it tipped, it was always simply temporary.

Gardiner, I expected to feel… isolated, alone, less familiar. But the sights, the smells, the hugs from friends and the double-takes from acquaintances, all reminded me why I loved this town to begin with. Erase the silliness and drama and everything that made life needlessly frustrating for a year, I love this place. I have friends here, and there is always something exciting to find only steps away. Even people I only spoke to once or twice recognized me in surprise and exclaimed, “Welcome back!” in a way that made me feel that yes, I was actually back. In Gardiner, I become one of those annoying people who stops in the middle of the road to talk with someone through the car window.

I just wasn’t expecting it.

And now it’s so difficult to leave. We keep running scenarios over in our heads, trying to decide how to stay.

On our way out, back to Ft. Collins, we drove through the northeast entrance to catch a ride on the Beartooth Highway. We kept our eyes open for any fun wildlife. We haven’t been able to get into the park much since we got here, so we were hoping for a show. Jonmikel said idly, “I’d really like to see a bear.” The last time we saw one was on our way out of the park for the last time last summer on our way to Scotland. Well, all he had to do was complain, and suddenly, close to the Specimen Ridge trail head on the west side of Little America, we come up on what looks like a serious animal jam. A handful of people are idling inconsiderately in the middle of the road (tourists…) but most are ceremoniously gathered on the tops of cars along the sides of the road, hoisting themselves up a bit to see over the ridge just ahead to our right. Jonmikel and I scan the area, Jonmikel being more familiar with the landscape and more able to detect out-of-place animals. Someone to our left, out the open window, points and gestures slightly wildly, “There’s the pronghorn.” This stumps me totally, as such jams are usually reserved for wolves or bears or a wayward bison walking down the middle of the road (in which case, the block is usually a roving bison jam and traffic inches forward regularly). Pronghorn, while cute and fuzzy and symbolic of Home on the Range, usually don’t attract the crowds. Jonmikel spots it through the tall grasses and points it out. I get a glimpse of the horns and :::boom::: the little guy takes off at full throttle across the field. The only time animals run that fast: something’s chasing them! We watch, carefully, and suddenly from behind the ridge and underbrush, a large grizzly comes barreling out after the “antelope,” its distinctive hump eliciting ooohs and aaaahs from the onlookers. Of course, the bear had no chance, pronghorns being arguably the fastest land animal after the cheetah (filling the same niche as the antelope in Africa, evolving the same traits, only the American cheetah went extinct ages ago, leaving the pronghorn to thrive), and quickly went back to its origin. I wondered if the bear hadn’t snuck up on the pronghorn and a baby, and was returning to snack on its young kill.

It was a nice farewell (for now).