Mom said in her post that it's only a few miles, but it takes longer when you have to drive at 35 mph, but this morning when we got to Yellowstone, we ended up driving about 6 mph, no joke! There was sooo much traffic when we first started out. Turns out it was because people were stopping to see the ONE bison on the right side of the road! Ugh... people were passing, stopping, cutting others off - all in the middle of the road! Of course, we also had to stop - but I promise we were not rude or in anyone's way!
On the way to our first destination, we saw a bald eagle nest! With the bald eagle IN IT! You can't really see the eagle very well in the picture, but you can definitely see the nest!
Since the beginning of the family trip, my car has been occupied by my mom and Salome's mom in the front seats and Amy and I in the back. However, since both Mom and Salome's mom have lifetime passes to all National parks, Salome's mom stayed in Steve's car today and last night, and when we go back into Yellowstone again tomorrow morning - 8:30AM ... eew!
So in my car for the Yellowstone journeys, Mom has been driving - I drove a little - I sat in the front seat and Chris and Jeffery sat in the back. I really like this emo picture I took of Chris in the back. ... Listening to his iPod too! Instead of the beautiful sounds of nature! Kids today!
We also saw tons of bison later! Steve and I got out to go take pictures and some others followed us out later.
I tried to take some pix through a pair of binoculars Kris leant us before we left CA. I think it came out pretty darned cool!
Further on still, we saw an awesome water fall in the Firehole Road Loop. And there was an unofficial trail going down to the water, so Steve, Chris and I ventured down.
We stopped again later for a potty break; by that time we had taken a separate road that was a one-way road so we were planning on going straight through and then making it back to the regular road and back to Old Faithful and of course, the other Geyser Basins on the way.
The sky was beautiful all day! It ended up raining later in the day, but even then it was pretty!
We drove through Fountain Flat Drive.
Then we drove over to and stopped at the Lower Geyser Basin, which contains such geysers as the Celestine Pool, Jet Geyser (which erupted a little on our way back to the car later), Spasm Geyser (which appropriately for its name never stopped erupting), the Fountain Paint Pot (which consisted entirely of mud), among many others!
At the Lower Geyser Basin, one of the first little springs/things [:) was the Red Spouter. As it turns out, the geysers like Red Spouter were non-existent prior to a great earthquake in 1959! The earthquake caused so much dislocation, that it forced a tiny spring into existence which over time became the Red Spouter.
This is the Spasm Geyser. It looked like this pretty much the WHOLE time. Ever-erupting!
The colours really are gorgeous. My battery died when we went to the Upper Geyser Basin, but we found out later that the colours of the rocks and water coincide with the temperature! Blue and clear water is the hottest possible at more than 160 degrees! And it goes on from there for the coolest temperature as orange and orangish browns, and sometimes so dark it looks black!
When we stopped at the Midway Geyser Basin, it was raining pretty hard, but God is sooo good and within ten minutes of sitting in our cars deciding what to do, the rain subsided and the first real SUN of the day appeared! Of course, it didn't help that as soon as we walked by the steam produced by the geysers, we were pretty much moistened to the point of soaking by time we got back to the car!
The Upper Geyser Basin contained Grotto Geyser - which is AWESOME! I wish I had a picture to show you! Sawmill Geyser - which we saw erupt and basically had to rush passed so we didn't get scalded; Grand Geyser - which we waiting to erupt, but it never did, although we did see Marmots which look a lot like a mix between giant beavers and large, furry chipmunks; Giant Geyser; Riverside Geyser - which had been erupting 15 minutes prior to when we arrived and it stayed consistent for about 5 more minutes! and Old Faithful - which we missed up-close today :( we saw it from far away while treking to the other geysers. One of my favourite geysers was Chromatic Geyser, so named because it contains almost every colour in the spectrum! Vibrant too! The point was to go the farthest on their wooden tracks all the way to Morning Glory - which they now call Fading Glory. A friend from work told Mom it was the must-see geyser of the whole trip. It is actually very sad. It is beautifully brilliant but since it was showcased a few decades ago, people have discarded their trash into the geyser - why??? Don't ask me! The geyser itself is much like Chromatic Geyser, except that the whole is much deeper and wider, but it gets more and more narrow as you look down, which is where all of the trash usually gathers, clogging it and requiring the park keepers to clean it. That can be easy seeing as it's clear and blue in the center, which if you remember from what I said earlier, is the hottest the water can get.
On the way back from Old Faithful, we saw bison in the road. At the stop sign and way later! Traffic was stopped again, except this time there were babies! They were jumping around and head-butting each other. And, of course, running into traffic!
We stopped again on the way back into town when a geyser off the side of the road was erupting! I can't remember what it was called, but there were tons of people waiting around to see it. My camera battery let me take one or two last pictures before it died again! - I really need to get another battery just to have on-hand. Ugh.
That's all for tonight.
Mom's turn! :)
Lizz
Nice update(s), I can barely remember some of those geysers - the pretty blue mineral water - from when I was 6. My family took an old camper from Maine to California to Canada and back. We stopped by Yellowstone on the way. I think I would appreciate it much more now though.
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