United in Our Hearts and Hopes

Day 19:

Happy 4th of July! A gold star for anyone who can name the title song without looking it up.

We spent much of the day around Old Faithful and the Upper Geyser area. Did you know that Yellowstone has more geysers than all of the rest of the world combined? For those of you who have never been here, I'm truly sorry. There is no way I can hope to capture the experience in words. There is so much to the beyond the visuals you get in pictures: the heat from the spray, the smell of sulfur dioxide, the delicate white patterns in the spray and the sheer power of nature that blasts water up to 300 feet in the air. If you have a list of things to do, you should put the geysers on it.

We of course spent time waiting at Old Faithful until it erupted. Sadly for us, we saw the spray over the tree tops as we pulled into the parking lot implying a 60-90 minute wait. We killed some time by taking in a short movie at the Visitor Center and walking through the very crowded gift shop. Once we made it outside to find ourselves a viewing spot, a lone bison decided to wander into the area and give himself a dirt bath. It was fascinating to hear the varied comments as the crowd approached the creature to take pictures. Park rules require that we maintain a 75 foot distance for safety and we were darn close to the minimum. There was an great exchange between a husband and wife where he wanted a better picture and she just wanted the heck out.

Once Old Faithful went off, it was up the 3-mile trail for a self-guided tour of the geysers, pools and vents in the area. After seeing many small geysers of various heights, we finally came upon a large group of fellow tourists waiting on benches in front of something called the Grand Geyser. Unlike Old Faithful which had an eruption window of plus or minus ten minutes, most other geysers sported windows of upwards of an hour. You have to be pretty dedicated in order to see most other geysers in action. We lucked onto the Grand Geyser at the end of its two-hour window and were treated to a 10-minute long display that we all agreed was better than that of Old Faithful.

The rest of the walk was more of the same smelly, beautiful phenomena. There were a lot of colored pools that came about because the varying water temperatures foster different bacteria that cause the colors and many patterns created by the minerals in the water. We also stopped to identify tracks as part of the kids' Junior Ranger requirements.

The farthest point in our hike was a place called the Morning Glory Pool. So called because it used to carry the deep blue color of it's namesake flower, it has been permanently damaged by people throwing coins and rocks into it thereby decreasing the temperature of the water beyond the inlet. It's just human nature and the law of large numbers, I guess.

Soon after deciding that we were all tired and that it was time to turn back, it started to rain. At first it was a welcome, cooling rain after the long walk in the blazing sunshine. It soon turned to big fat drops that really made an impression followed by small hail! This went on for about five minutes and we hid out in the shelter of some trees before heading back.

The way back was far less pretty. Instead of the serpentine boardwalk that ran between the geysers we only had a wade asphalt path that sometimes ran next to a river and would present a path to an occasional geyser. The only good part, other than it being a direct route home, was a wandering elk that stopped for a drink. And we had just been complaining about how little wildlife we had seen so far!


Highlights:
1. The geyser area
2. Both the kids finished their Junior Ranger tasks in one day.
3. A tall chocolate ice cream cone after the long hike

Quirks:
1. The sun is really intense here at 7800 feet. Temperatures in the shade are really nice, but it's very uncomfortable when the sun hits you directly. Luckily, we had a lot of cloud cover.
2. Some people adamantly drive the 35 mph speed limit. These are the people at the head of 15-car columns. They are also the ones that don't use turnouts.
3. The guy who packed out Ritz crackers, cheese whiz and summer sausage to the Grand Geyser. Seemed like a perfect place for some brie (even though I don't care for it much).
4. An old fashioned flip-number gasoline pump that I thought might run into mechanical problems because of how fast the price portion was spinning.