Yellowstone (Part One)

First, some pictures related to my last post:

The Truax Family and the Lewis Family!

Arriving at the Grand Teton National Park.

Bethany, Katherine, and Daniel at the Grand Tetons.

Now, on with the story . . . On Tuesday morning, July 1, Jon and Bethany woke up early and went out to explore the area while the others slept in a little longer. We found out where the Old Faithful Geyser was located in relation to our cabin, as well as the Visitor Center and eating places. We walked through the Old Faithful Inn and were duly impressed. At Bethany's request, we brought back some breakfast for the rest of the family.


The whole family was soon up and we trooped out to watch Old Faithful at its 10:10 a.m. predicted eruption time. Unfortunately, Old Faithful wasn't very faithful and went off almost 20 minutes late! Still, we were all excited to get to see this famous geyser erupt!

Old Faithful.

According to the Visitor Center, the "Great Fountain Geyser" was expected to erupt at 11 a.m. It is located a few miles north, so we quickly drove there and arrived just as it was going off. It was good to catch this geyser, because it only erupts about once every 11 hours. This geyser was even more impressive than Old Faithful as it seemed to be taller (and we could be closer and even get wet with the spray) and more powerful. But I didn't get any good pictures.

Near Great Fountain Geyser is an area called Firehole Lake. We saw a lot of "hydrothermal" activity today (that was the word for today!) We even saw one area we nicknamed "Marlington Falls" for its distinctive orange and black coloration.

"Marlington Falls"

We also saw a lot of smoking dry holes called "fumaroles." Some of them made hissing or humming noises. They're kind of spooky.

Nearby, we drove to an area called the Paint Pots, where we walked along a boardwalk trail. There we saw more fumaroles, hot springs, bubbling mud pots, geysers, and other interesting "hydrothermal" activity.

We were starting to get hungry by this point, so we drove to Canyon Village for lunch. We saw buffalo and elk on the way. We filled up with gas at $4.35 per gallon (that really made me miss Missouri!) We set a new record for filling up the van - $72!

We continued to drive north, always pulling off to look at scenic areas, such as waterfalls and mountain views. (A word here about pictures - we took hundreds of pictures at Yellowstone and cannot post them all. If you really want to see them, we can show them to you later. A lot of them look the same, and hardly any of them really capture the grandeur of the place. The pictures I post on this blog will be our best ones and the most representative of what we saw.)

At one pull-off, we clearly saw the Caldera Boundary. The Caldera is the sunken part of Yellowstone that once sat over a magma chamber that erupted in a supervolcano. The land in the Caldera region has a lot of that "hydrothermal" activity.

We were also up and down in elevation quite a bit. We pulled over at one point and had a snowball fight (well Jon and the kids did. Debbie just took pictures!)

We saw Tower Falls.

We saw a petrified tree. (I told the kids it didn't look petrified to me, just a little scared. This comment completely cracked up another visitor to the park who overheard me. I didn't think it was that funny!)

Around the mid-afternoon, on the way to Mammoth, we went through a brief but powerful hail storm. It chased 3 big elk out of a field and they ran across the road right in front of us in an attempt to get out of it!

We continued on into Mammoth where we spent the rest of the afternoon checking out the hot springs. We drove the upper loop and walked the lower loop. In Jon's opinion, the hot springs looked drier and duller than his trip here 21 years ago, and they had moved farther away from the boardwalks. Debbie thought they were some of the ugliest things she had ever seen.

Debbie was wearing her Marlington sweatshirt and we met someone here from North Canton who recognized the school's name. The man asked if anyone in our group went to Marlington Middle School. Daniel looked a little nervous when he found out that this man was a very good friend from college of Mr. Viscounte, the principal!

For supper, we drove to Gardiner, Montana, just outside the north entrance of the park. Along the way we saw a magnificent rushing river full of rapids. We ate at a little "drive inn" place and took years off our lives with the fried foods. For all 5 of us, this was our first time in Montana.


We stopped and saw the Roosevelt Arch at the North Entrance. We would have taken our family photo at the Yellowstone National Park sign, but there was a line and it was getting late.

On our drive back, we paused to see numerous pronghorn, buffalo (including adorable calves), elk, and a coyote.

We also saw this beautiful waterfall that I dubbed “Wedding Cake Falls” because of all the layers. I think it is my second favorite waterfall after Niagara Falls. We saw other waterfalls, too, such as Gibbon Falls. We arrived back at Old Faithful at 9:45 and pretty much collapsed, exhausted but filled with amazing images and memories.