They're looking for geysers now...

Howdy, Campers!

Our first full day in Yellowstone. So much to see here!

The day started cool, or as we Floridians say, "frickin' freezin' ". Low 40s. The trailer continues to work like a champ. We were warm inside and even the old mutt Kailey was toasty (there's a warm air duct from the trailer's furnace right by her bed on the floor of our bedroom area in the front of the Airstream).

We took time for a hot breakfast. A house specialty... "Gavin-cakes"... pancakes made with Pamela's gluten free pancake mix which we started buying during one of those "maybe he is gluten intolerant???" periods. He wasn't, but our taste for Pamela's lasted beyond the experiment and his name stuck to the tradition.

After getting ourselves and our shiny silver yurt cleaned up, we packed some food and drink, walked the dogs and headed off.

Let me update an exaggerated estimate I made yesterday without the benefit of the Internet to fact check. Yellowstone isn't the size of New England (although it feels like it). It is the size of Rhode Island and Delaware combined. It is roughly square. There are five main entrances... One each near the center of the west, south and east boundaries, one each in the northwest and northeast corners. The roads from each of those entrances leads to a pair of ring roads within the park that connect to form a figure 8. Yellowstone Lake sits along the southeast segment of the lower lobe of that figure 8 and we are on the shore of Yellowstone Lake at the very bottom of that road.

To start our exploration of Yellowstone we headed to the west clockwise around that lower lobe. All the pics and movies tonight are from the geyser section of the park which includes Old Faithful (it turns out the geyser we saw yesterday has a name and they actually have been telling everyone about it since 1872!) and a bunch more. That section is basically from the 6 o'clock to the 9 o'clock position of just the lower lobe of the figure 8. Like touring a few neighborhoods in Wilmington or Providence...

A centerpiece attraction of the geyser basins is the Grand Prismatic Spring. Our son specifically asked that we explore that and report back, dude, this is for you! The spring is basically a round lake of boiling water that appears to be 300-400 feet in diameter. The water is a brilliant blue, not blue like the Caribbean, blue like the water in which you just cleaned a water color paintbrush after a failed attempt at a seascape or blue like Easter egg dye that got diluted a bit too much. It's seriously, stinkin' blue. Around it are flats formed by the evaporation of water running out of the lake. They are white and brown and a range of earthy tones. The hot water also forms vivid, rust colored sections that are the result of bacteria that thrive in the warm water. If this pool was located in... oh.... say.... New Jersey, there would be songs about it (maybe a Springstein album... "Prismatic"). Mothers from Hackensack would reserve a wedding date there 25 years in advance upon the birth of a daughter. Kids from Camden would travel 2 1/2 hours each way by school bus in the 5th grade to learn about New Jersey geography. But it's not in New Jersey, it's in Wyoming and here it is a remarkable attraction among hundreds of remarkable attractions. Here, take a look...

and a video Mrs. C' shot on her iPhone which won't load... so I'll work on that in the morning and post all of her videos as soon as I figure out how to do that...

We also saw this feature literally 100' from the Prismatic Spring:

It is the Excelsior Geyser Crater. Note the scale using the person on the walkway to the left. There was a continuously bubbling spot in the pool that occasionally shot a jet of water and steam 20 or 30 feet in the air. Hardly worth mentioning here. A spectacle anywhere else on earth.

A range of other geysers, boiling mud pits (seriously... boiling mud... like something Frodo and Samwise and the gang would have faced on the approach to Mordor) and all range of steaming features consumed our morning. I won't even bother to categorize these. Just understand they are all within about a 5 mile stretch of one road out of hundreds of miles of roads here and they are all within walking distance of parking lots (you didn't think we were hiking around Yellowstone... did you? Just to move place to place on the highway we travel with two generators, 40 gallons of fresh water, two water heaters, a 15,000 BTU air conditioner... hiking is out. If God wants us to see his glory in earthly form we figure he'd put it near a paved road... And that's precisely what we found today!) )

Eventually, we were as saturated with the views of colorful, steaming, wet earth as the air was saturated with sulphur smells. What to do.... what to do... Ah ha... Head into town to see the man made sites. Off we went to West Yellowstone, Montana through the west exit of the park. This was Mrs. C's first trip to Montana and what an impression it made on her!  Actually, having been to Jackson, WY, we were prepared for the worst. What might West Yellowstone offer to compete with and trap the tourists who had escaped the clutches of the elk antler arches? In fact, nothing. West Yellowstone is a dusty, small, somewhat sad and dilapidated town with some hotels and tourist traps (there's an IMAX theater showing movies about Yellowstone!) but mostly serious guide stores, provisioners and such for people who are more interested in taking in Yellowstone that they are in taking home souvenirs. What a refreshing contrast. West Yellowstone was a genuine little town. After a bit of driving around we headed back to the park.

Remember the rant from yesterday's blog about the guy taking a picture of the south-facing end of a northbound elk! Well, today I was him! We were wholehearted, unbridled participants in a genuine Yellowstone critter-induced traffic tie up! What fun! The quary this time was bison. About 20 or 30 of them. A beautiful mix of calves and adults some of which had just crossed a stream and others were contemplating joining them. Here's be best shot that the 200mm on the Canon could get from our vantage point on the closest road.

We had a home cooked dinner that couldn't be beat... t-bones and fresh asparagus we picked up in Jackson with sweet potatoes from an organic grocery run by neo-hippie stoners in Steamboat Springs all cooked on the gas grill we carry which plugs directly into the trailer outside. Just like home!

Tomorrow we plan to do pretty much the same thing except without the trip to West Yellowstone. We will head counterclockwise from our camp toward the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone! More news and pics tomorrow night!

SC

matic spring. You know what I think would have happened if this was in Delaware or Rhode Island...