Yellowstone National Park is a truly
amazing place. If you've never been there, put it on your bucket
list. It's huge, too much to see in a day, so we took 2 days.
On the first day, we started at Old
Faithful and walked a lot around the thermal features near there.
There are lots of pools of colored water, and the colors are due to
the different creatures living in it, at different temperatures.
Several of the pools are geysers, and erupt occasionally, some
regularly and some very rarely.
We also went to Mammoth Hot Springs.
As we were driving in, we got caught in a traffic jam due to a
tourist who approached a bison for a picture. He was gored, thrown
into the air, and then trampled. He was on the ground being tended
to by EMTs when we arrived, and the bison was grazing nearby. Then
the rangers arrived and used two jeeps to drive the bison away. They
lose one or two tourists that way every year, and they are very
serious about not getting close to the animals, or feeding them.
When I was a lad, we went to Yellowstone and the bears would surround
the cars and beg for food. No more, they are wild again and don't
bother the cars. We didn't even see any bears, but we did see a
family of elk crossing the street and settling down in the shade.
Mammoth Hot Springs is big mounds and
terraces built up by deposits of minerals from the springs. They
make some colorful and interesting shapes.
They've posted signs around some areas
of the park that had been burned in the big fire in 1988.
As if the need for reseeding had not
been caused by the fire itself !! Reminds me of the BP commercials
telling all the wonderful things they've done for the Gulf Coast.
On the way back, we saw a big bull elk
next to the road.
More pictures here.
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