Our Yellowstone Visit

On our way out of Wyoming, we decided to do a quick trip through Yellowstone National Park. We had an absolutely fabulous time driving around and looking at all the bubbling mud pots and geysers. We could only really spend one day there, and it was a day jam-packed with amazing sights, sounds, and smells.

If you haven’t been to Yellowstone, you need to know right now that it is no state park. It is absolutely HUGE! We could only drive around the southern loop (over 100 miles, I think) and look at the things along the way. We went to two different Visitor’s Centers where we learned about the fact that Yellowstone is sitting on top of a gigantic bubbling underground volcano, which is what makes the geysers and hot springs boil and bubble. We agreed that if we had come upon some of the sights and sounds at Yellowstone a few hundred years ago, we would have sworn there were witches muttering, “Bubble, bubble, toil, and trouble, fire burn and caldron bubble,” somewhere around the hissing and bubbling springs. We would also have assumed that the witches were filthy and on a diet existing only of hard boiled eggs due to the nasty smells. The sulfuric stench was almost too much to bear at times, and after we had left the park, it lingered in our nostrils for quite some time.

The first thing we did was to drive to Old Faithful to see it spew steamy water into the sky. We got a front row seat and waited for it to erupt. When it finally did, our view of the spout of water was obscured by the steam due to the direction the wind was blowing. It was still really magnificent, but not what we had hoped. So, we took about 80 minutes and walked around the loop behind Old Faithful to look at tons of other smaller geysers and hot springs. By the time we were finished, Old Faithful was about ready to blow again, so we went around to the other side and got a much better view for our second showing of Old Faithful. The place was packed with other tourists, but we didn’t mind. We were glad to see so many people interested in nature.

We spent most of the day in amazement of the awesome (and here, I mean the original, although less frequently used, meaning of the word “awesome” – awe-inspiring) natural wonders of Yellowstone. The rivers running through the canyons create beautiful picture opportunities, and the short “hikes” that we took to view the numerous geysers and boiling lakes were refreshing. I (Claire) still had incredibly sore muscles from our ten mile hike with Joel and Laura and from our float down Flat Creek (most of which I spent frantically paddling with my hands to try to keep up with the others), so John listened to me moan and groan about how much it hurt to walk up and down hill. But, I think the stretching and walking turned out to be a good thing for my sore muscles. Today, I’m feeling pretty good.

While we were in the park, we also learned about how the wildfires of 1988 had affected the ecosystem of the park, which was especially interesting because the little documentary movie we watched about it was made in 1998 – ten years after the fire, and ten years (almost) ago. We noticed the changes in the park from when the movie was made until today. We also got to see some wildlife. When we came back from a little hike, we walked up to our car only to find several people standing in close proximity to the car with cameras. As it turned out, while we were away, a gigantic 12-point buck elk had decided to come and graze in the ditch right by our car. We felt the situation was a little dangerous because the elk was only about fifteen feet from the car and ten feet from us – and from other idiotic tourists with cameras who think it’s okay to shout and wave at the elk to get it to look up at the camera. We left before any unfortunate incidents occurred. We also got a picture of a Bison who was munching away at grass right by the side of the road.

After a full tiring day, we drove out of the park and through some mountains (about two hours due to ups, downs, weavings, and windings) to Cody, Wyoming, where we stayed in a cute (although a little tacky) locally owned hotel called Buffalo Bill’s Village. All the material in the little cabins actually had prints of cowboys riding and lassoing cows. It grew on me. We had a good night’s sleep and got up fairly early to start today, which is fodder for a different blog post scheduled for tomorrow night.