Yellowstone

We entered Yellowstone from the northeast.  Before getting to any geologic features, a valley filled with buffalo greeted us.  Adrianne was excited to see buffalo for the first time.  

Even though we weren't in eastern New York, seeing buffalo reminded me of this unique grammatically correct sentence, Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.  

We toured the falls of the grand canyon of the Yellowstone, zooming down and up the trail.  Calling in a reservation for a campsite from the visitor center, we continued touring.   

We visited the Norris hot springs area, with all sorts of belching and churning steam holes and some small geysers.  Before heading to camp, we made a quick stop at the paint pots to see some bubbling muddy paste.  Geology is wild.

One of my favorite things were the bubbling paint pots... hilarious!

The Yellowstone campsite had over 500 sites, and it was full!  It was cramped with little privacy, which was a change from all the national forest camping we had been doing.  

A dog jumps out of the RV next door to greet Joey the next morning.

The following day we pulled out our bikes and rode an easy trail to a small granite natural bridge.  It was a pretty cool trail along an old road.  The national parks are pretty strict with the trails where they allow mountainbikes.  They have only allowed mountainbikes on closed roads and certain paved trails. This has been the case at almost all of the parks we have visited.  I am not sure why their policy is so strict, but my guess is a mountainbiker wronged an important NPS official at some point.  

We took another biking trail to try and catch a glimpse of the Lone Star Geyser, but unfortunately we arrived just after an the geyser went off.  Not wanting to wait another three hours till the next likely eruption, we returned to the car and drove to Old Faithful.  

While we were early for the Old Faithful eruption, the area around the geyser held some interesting attractions.  There was another 4wd Ford van in the parking lot similar in age to ours advertising a ski company in colorado.  (The first one we had seen like ours on the trip!)  We picked up some famous Wilcoxson's ice cream and waited in the grand stands for the geyser to go off.  We got great front row seats for the consistent star of Yellowstone.  

Old Faithful was even cooler than expected; we spent a lot of time discussing how the geysers work.  The short explanations on the posted signs don't seem to do the geo-physics justice.  After the eruption we toured the other geysers in the area. 

Broncos colors!

On our way out, we toured the Grand Prismatic Spring, Adrianne's favorite spot.  The springs contain many different types of bacteria.  Different varieties thrive at different temperatures.  As the water leaves the spring, it cools forming distinct temperature zones for each type of bacteria - the effect is a concentric rainbow. 

Leaving the park, we stopped by grant village to get showers and stock up on supplies.  Our cashier was also a fan of Wilcoxson's ice cream - we had tubs of this ice cream at home from other national park trips.  He educated us on the meaning of the many colored lids, the number of flavors in circulation, and in general how many gallons of the stuff the park goes through per hour at Old Faithful.  He was a fountain of knowledge.  

We camped that evening in Grand Teton National Park, Yellowstone's southern neighbor.  I gathered wood and made a fire, something we usually avoid doing because of the smoke and the time it takes to build and put it out.  It was worth it, the evening was cool, and we were able to sit outside and check out the stars.