Yellowstone

YELLOWSTONE PARK, WY - Let's sum up the past couple days in a few postings. (NOTE: All pictures can be seen in bigger size by clicking on them. If I make them any larger, I'll have to do a dozen posts.)

I woke up early in the morning on Tuesday in that WalMart parking lot in Cody. My car rocked all night long from the heavy wind. I tried to imagine it as being rocked to sleep - the kind of rocking where you freeze your ass off while being in a cramped space that smells kind of bad. I did get to have a first for the trip... let me know if this is TMI. I awoke around 4am feeling a desperate need to evacuate my bladder. The kind of pain that you know you could endure for several hours if necessary, but you certainly won't be able to go to sleep with it. The wind was howling outside and I was freezing in full clothes under a blanket... so... I grabbed an empty water bottle. This was no easy task in the dark, so I flipped on the overhead light while finding myself muttering a short prayer that no one would try to get into the two cars on either side of me for the next minute or so. Josh suggested today that I get one of those large Mountain Dew bottle for just such an occasion. It is on my "To Do" list.

There was about an hour drive to Yellowstone through the mountains and I already had difficulty getting through the trip quickly without stopping every little bit to take pictures.







It was a wonderful drive. I got into the park and was quickly greeted by snow (no, sadly, not Tom). Everything was amazing.



The pictures don't do it justice, but the road reached so high up that the clouds were hanging just a couple hundred feet above. It felt like you could reach up and touch the sky. It definitely felt like a different world there.



There are only a couple main roads through the park, which make a circle around the center of the park and trail up the two sides. I started heading in the direction of Old Faithful so I could make sure to check it out and hit the waterfalls before sunset. I stopped at one of the many sites to see natural hot springs (or at least to see some sulfur exhaust) and was snapping some pictures. Then I saw a pretty big animal eating something down below. My heart practically jumped out of my chest I was so excited... because from behind it looked like a grizzly. I moved my getaway car a little closer to the edge so I could jump in quickly if necessary and started walking to the side so I could get a better look. From behind, it looked like a grizzly hunched over until I saw the dark brown head. It turned out to be a bison laying down eating some grass. I was pretty disappointed.



I actually never saw a bear all day, which I had kind of set my heart on. This is why I'm trying to have zero expectations for this trip... it will only to lead to disappointment. And to think, I packed a pic-a-nic basket for two...



I spent a good part of the morning just driving around and stopping every 500 feet or so. Every spot there seems perfect. It was a good start to the day.

I stopped near Old Faithful and tried to find somewhere to shower. I was getting a little sick of myself. Unfortunately, the showers are closed off-season, as is most everything there, so I was out of luck. I took a bit of a trucker shower in the bathroom of the dining hall there and brushed my teeth. Lunch was okay... I was happy to eat something warm. But there was something else I wasn't happy about...



Somebody's getting sued.

Anyway, I wandered over to Old Faithful and must have just missed the most recent display. There's a boardwalk that goes all the way around the geysers (there's several of them) and there's plenty of benches for seating. I grabbed a prime one and decided to rest for a little while. Luckily, there was plenty to keep me entertained during that time.

People watching is a lot of fun. For example: This couple that sat down near me had their little puppy with. The dog's name was "Scooter" but when the woman called the dog, her southern accent made it sound more like "Skeew-ter". She was practically obsessed with taking pictures of this little thing. She even went so far as to have her husband leave the boardwalk and walk towards Old Faithful with the dog so he could set it down and the dog could run towards the camera with the geyser in the background. Now let me say this: The boardwalk is there for a reason. There are signs everywhere and a big warning before you approach the area. Lots of people get hurt every year because new sulfur pockets pop up all the time. The ground can give away, leaving very intelligent individuals standing in boiling water, scalding mud, or acidic messes which eat through boots. But damn! We want a cure picture of Skeew-ter, eh?! Nothing bad happened though and Social Darwinism continues to disappoint me.


I laid down on the bench and slept for a little while. It's funny what people will say about you when they think you are asleep, even if you're within earshot.

The geyser went off and I grabbed a lot of pictures. I'm curious how film will turn out. I still haven't gotten any rolls developed.




Afterward, I watched the "Mother of the Year" let her little three-year-old walk off the boardwalk and wander around. Did I mention that one of the biggest displays next to all the warnings was a display funded by the family of a nine-year-old who was off the boardwalk and broke through the ground, getting burned to death. It happened in the 70's and the family helped pay for the display so it wouldn't happen to someone else. And this mom just smiled as she watched her kid play in the rocks. People amaze me.

Wildlife was everywhere. It kind of put things in perspective. If we weren't around, the rest of the world would just keep going, like we had never been here.





I'll let the pictures tell the rest.