(CN) - The phone buzzed on the nightstand next to me. I awoke and glanced at the alarm clock. 4:34. AM. I picked up the phone and looked at the screen. My editor.
My knee-jerk reaction was to throw the phone across the room.
But not today.
This is not a political column about a nuclear crisis and whether our president can answer the call.
This dispatch is about a different kind of crisis: the frightening prospect of having to wait for parking and then wade through throngs of crowds, many of them fresh off tour bus hell, in order to "enjoy" a national park.
"Hey Bill," I grumbled into the phone.
"I'm up. I called Adam but he didn't answer."
"OK. I think it's a little too early, even for us."
"Really?"
"Let's give it another hour. If Adam calls back, call me back and I'll wake up Thresa."
I hung up and realized I probably wasn't going to be able to get back to sleep.
The phone buzzed again.
"Hey."
"Bill's up already."
"I know. I told him to wait an hour, but since you're up, we might as well get going. We'll be there by 5:30."
I called Thresa in the other room. She didn't answer. After righting myself I stumbled to her room and knocked on the door.
"Time to make the doughnuts!"
"Ugh, you've got to be kidding me!," she yelled from behind the door.
"Hey, you did this!" I rejoined.
"I know!"
My friend had met us in a taxidermy-festooned grill and saloon in the western-themed tourist town of Cody, Wyoming the night before for some grub before we attended the nightly rodeo, featured in this dispatch.
I introduced her to Adam and she said hi to Bill, an old acquaintance, before sitting down and asking, "So how early are we getting going in the morning?"
She had driven down from Bozeman, Montana to join us on a weekend trip to Yellowstone National Park. We'd come up from Cheyenne, Wyoming after a hiring and training trip in the southern part of the state.
I told her we agreed we could be ready to go by 7:30.
"You guys are killing me," she muttered.
Bill explained that he didn't think he could get up much before that.
I started to say we'd still get to the park early enough, but I remembered that Bill, his internal clock still thrown off from a trip to Japan that he'd returned from before meeting us, had been emailing almost every day that week by 5:30 in the morning.
"How about Bill just calls us when he gets up tomorrow? If he doesn't call by 6:30, we should all just get up then and leave by 7:30," I offered.
"Alright," Thresa said, but then added that she knew from experience that we should get to the park as close to daybreak as possible to beat the crowds.
"You're late," Adam said when we pulled up to his hotel a few minutes after 5:30.
Perhaps, but it was still dark.