Jian's Journeys – Yellowstone & Grand Teton: Seeing the World with New Eyes

By: Dr. Jian Zhang

I have always wanted to see the world.

Over the years, my family took many wonderful trips together while our children were growing up. Those journeys remain some of our happiest memories—discovering new places, experiencing different cultures, and simply having uninterrupted time together as a family.

I also traveled extensively throughout my career, often for conferences, meetings, speaking engagements, and professional responsibilities. Those journeys had their own rewards, but they usually came with schedules, commitments, and a clear purpose.

Traveling after retirement feels different.

The children are grown. The pace of life has changed. There is no longer the same need to fit a family vacation between school calendars and work responsibilities, or to arrive somewhere already thinking about the next meeting.

Now I find myself wanting to travel more slowly and observe more deeply.

There is less urgency to “cover” a destination and more desire to truly experience it.

That is why I have decided to call this new series Jian’s Journey—a companion to Jian’s Garden.

Jian’s Garden is about what I cultivate at home.

Jian’s Journey is about what I discover when I venture beyond it.

Perhaps both are really about the same thing: remaining curious, continuing to learn, and noticing beauty along the way.

In the Spirit of Xu Xiake

As I began this journey, I found myself thinking about Xu Xiake (徐霞客), the great Chinese traveler, geographer, and writer of the Ming Dynasty.

More than four centuries ago, Xu Xiake spent decades traveling across China, much of it on foot, exploring mountains, rivers, caves, and remote landscapes. His famous travel diaries were more than records of places visited. He observed carefully, questioned what he saw, and sought to understand the natural world through firsthand experience.

I am certainly no Xu Xiake. 😊

But his spirit resonates with me at this stage of life:

Keep walking. Keep observing. Keep learning.

There is an old Chinese saying:

读万卷书，行万里路。Read ten thousand books, travel ten thousand miles.

Perhaps this next chapter of life offers a wonderful opportunity to do a little more of both.

Yellowstone: A Landscape Alive

Our journey began in Yellowstone National Park, established in 1872 and widely regarded as the world’s first national park.

I had seen countless photographs of Yellowstone, but photographs cannot fully prepare you for the feeling of standing there.

The earth seems alive.

Steam rises unexpectedly from the ground. Water boils beneath your feet. Geysers erupt into the sky. Brilliant colors appear in places where you would never imagine life could exist.

We watched Old Faithful erupt, walked among geothermal basins, and saw the extraordinary colors of Grand Prismatic Spring.

We actually returned to Grand Prismatic a second time.

On our first visit, we saw it from the boardwalk. But I learned that the best way to appreciate its enormous size and remarkable colors was from the overlook above, so we went back and climbed to the vista point.

I am glad we did.

Sometimes seeing something from a different perspective changes the entire experience.

From there we traveled to Yellowstone Lake, its vast blue water surrounded by forest and mountains, and then to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, where the river has carved its way through spectacular layers of rock.

Everywhere we went, Yellowstone seemed to reveal another personality.

Fire and water. Forest and canyon. Stillness and movement.

And then came the rain.

Mammoth Hot Springs in the Rain

Our visit to Mammoth Hot Springs became one of the most memorable experiences of the trip—not because we had perfect weather, but because we didn't.

It started raining as we walked up to see the terraces.

I had no umbrella.

My so-called “water-resistant” Burberry jacket became completely soaked. My hair, head, and shoulders were wet, and as we continued climbing, I became colder and colder.

At one point, I wondered why I was still walking uphill in the rain.

But I wanted to see Mammoth Hot Springs, so we kept going.

When we finally reached the terraces, I realized that the rain had given us something unexpected.

烟雨蒙蒙，另一番景象。

Through the rain and mist, the landscape became softer and quieter, almost like a traditional Chinese ink painting.

The mountains appeared and disappeared behind the clouds. Steam from the thermal landscape mingled with the mist. It was completely different from Yellowstone under brilliant sunshine—and equally beautiful.

That experience stayed with me.

We often hope for perfect conditions when we travel, and perhaps in life as well.

But sometimes the unexpected conditions create the memory.

Not every beautiful experience requires a blue sky.

Lamar Valley: We Are the Visitors

Later, we drove through Lamar Valley.

The rain continued on and off, and clouds hung low over the mountains. Rivers wound quietly through the enormous valley.

And everywhere, there was life.

We watched herds of bison spread across the grasslands, grazing and moving freely through the landscape.

There were no fences separating them from their world. No carefully arranged scene for visitors.

They were simply living.

Watching them, I had a very clear thought:

This is their home. We are the visitors.

That feeling would return again and again during the rest of our journey.

From Yellowstone to Grand Teton

After several days exploring Yellowstone, we drove south toward Grand Teton National Park.

Gradually, the landscape changed.

Yellowstone's geothermal drama gave way to open meadows, forests, rivers, lakes, and mountains.

And then the Tetons appeared.

Unlike many mountain ranges where foothills gradually lead your eyes upward, the Teton Range seems to rise almost directly from the valley floor. The jagged peaks dominate the horizon.

On our first day, clouds moved constantly across the mountains. At times the peaks disappeared completely, only to emerge again as the clouds shifted.

We arrived at our lodge in the afternoon, enjoyed a relaxing happy hour, and later headed into Jackson Hole.

On our way back that evening, the sky suddenly began turning shades of gold, orange, and pink over the open landscape.

We stopped simply to enjoy it.

No meeting.

No agenda.

Nothing that needed to be accomplished.

Just a beautiful sunset—and enough time to notice it.

How Grand Nature Is—and How Small We Are

One feeling stayed with me throughout both Yellowstone and Grand Teton:

How grand nature is, and how small we humans are within it.

Standing before the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, watching steam rise from deep within the earth, looking across Lamar Valley filled with bison, or seeing the Tetons tower above a clear mountain lake, our everyday concerns suddenly seemed very small.

We spend so much of our lives organizing, planning, building, managing, solving problems, and trying to control outcomes.

And then we stand before a mountain.

The mountain does not care about our schedule.

A storm arrives whether or not we brought an umbrella.

A river continues carving its way through stone.

A geyser erupts because of forces deep beneath the earth.

Clouds cover the mountains and reveal them again.

Wild animals move through landscapes that were their home long before we arrived.

Nature operates on a scale of time and space that is difficult for us to comprehend.

And strangely, realizing how small we are did not make me feel insignificant.

It made me feel humbled—and liberated.

For a moment, there was no need to accomplish anything, prove anything, or control anything.

We could simply stand there and be part of something much larger than ourselves.

Perhaps that is one reason spending time in nature can be so restorative.

It restores perspective.

The Animals Along the Way

Wildlife became another unforgettable part of this journey.

Throughout Yellowstone and Grand Teton, we encountered bears, elk, moose, bison, and many other animals. On our first day in Grand Teton alone, we saw four bears.

We also stopped near a group of horses, and that became one of the simplest but happiest moments of the trip.

Standing beside them, touching them, and watching their gentle response reminded me how much joy can come from an encounter that was never on the itinerary.

The animals reinforced what we had felt in Lamar Valley.

These national parks are not simply beautiful landscapes preserved for our enjoyment.

They are living ecosystems.

We are the visitors.

That lesson became even clearer the following day.

Jenny Lake: Beauty, and a Little Fear

Our day at Jenny Lake gave us some of the most beautiful weather of the entire trip.

The sky was intensely blue, filled with brilliant white clouds. The lake was so clear that we could see the stones beneath the water.

Mountains rose dramatically above the lake while forests followed its shoreline.

We walked about 2.5 miles along Jenny Lake, sometimes beside the water and sometimes beneath the trees.

It was peaceful and beautiful.

And then we saw a bear.

Later, we saw another.

Two bears during one hike.

One was within about 100 yards of us.

That was a little too close for comfort. 😅

Seeing a bear from inside a car is exciting. Encountering one while you are walking through the forest feels entirely different.

Suddenly, wilderness is no longer scenery.

You realize that you are walking through someone else's home—and that in this enormous natural world, we humans are not always at the center of the story.

That moment brought both excitement and respect.

Nature is magnificent, but it is not ours to control.

Perhaps part of traveling well is learning to enter these places with humility.

From Achievement to Experience

As I walked through Yellowstone and Grand Teton, I found myself reflecting on how life changes.

For decades, much of my life was organized around goals.

There was always something to accomplish—another degree, another professional challenge, another organizational problem to solve, another responsibility to fulfill.

I still enjoy being active. I continue to teach, advise, learn, write, and contribute.

But I am also discovering another way of measuring a good day.

Not every meaningful day needs an accomplishment attached to it.

A meaningful day can be walking 2.5 miles beside a beautiful lake.

It can be watching clouds move across a mountain.

It can be stopping beside the road because the sunset is too beautiful to drive past.

It can be touching a horse.

It can even be getting completely soaked and cold while climbing Mammoth Hot Springs—and later realizing that the rain allowed you to see a side of Yellowstone you might otherwise have missed.

For much of life, we grow through doing.

Perhaps there are also seasons when we grow through seeing.

Seeing nature.

Seeing people and cultures.

Seeing the world more slowly.

And, sometimes, seeing ourselves differently.

There is something freeing about standing before a mountain and realizing that I don't need to lead anything here.

I don't need to solve the mountain's problems.

I don't need to make the river flow faster.

I don't need to improve the sunset.

I can simply be present.

That, too, is an experience worth learning.

The Beginning of Jian’s Journey

That may be what Jian’s Journey is really about.

It isn't simply a record of where I travel.

I hope it becomes a record of what I discover along the way.

Jian’s Garden is about planting, nurturing, and watching things grow.

Jian’s Journey is about going outward—exploring mountains and rivers, cities and cultures, history and people—and bringing something home from each experience.

Not necessarily a souvenir.

Perhaps a story.

A thought.

A question.

A lesson.

Or simply a deeper appreciation for this extraordinary world we are fortunate enough to experience.

Xu Xiake spent a lifetime walking among China's mountains and rivers and recording what he discovered.

My journey will be different.

But I hope to carry a little of that same curiosity with me.

Keep walking. Keep seeing. Keep learning.

The first chapter of Jian’s Journey began among the geysers and hot springs of Yellowstone and ended beside the clear waters and towering mountains of Grand Teton. It reminded me that traveling slowly gives us perspective.

Nature reminds us of our place in the world.

And perhaps recognizing how small we are can actually make life feel larger, not smaller.

There are still many mountains to climb, rivers to follow, places to discover, and people to meet. 山一程，水一程。

And perhaps that is one of the great privileges of this next chapter of life:

There is still so much of the world to see—and now, a little more time to truly see it.