Yellowstone National Park, WY. July, 1992

When I announced to my parents in 1969 that I was going to spend the summer in Europe and that I’d (wisely) already made all the arrangements, my mother (predictably) said, “See America first.” Too late, Mom. Anyway, it took me more than 20 years before I started to explore our own nation’s treasures, thanks to an invitation from a Cambridge friend who was summering in his home state of Montana. And while we’re friends no longer, we had a great time together back then, driving south from Billings, Montana, along the Beartooth Highway, past Red Lodge, through Yellowstone and on into the Grand Teton National Park, where we stayed in a log cabin, swam beneath the snow-capped peaks and had biscuits and gravy for breakfast. Here in Yellowstone, on the walkways leading past the so-called Old Faithful geyser, we met a wonderful family from Milan. I was tempted to ask the mother if she’d admonished her children to see Italy first.