Yellowstone

We just got back from our trip to Yellowstone National Park. It was a longer trip than we are accustomed to taking, not without pitfalls as a result, but we did manage to get back without hitting a coyote or some such dreadful thing, so there was that at least. I have pictures to work on, of course, and the odd 'impression' to share about the trip...

Mark liked Yellowstone because it evoked the fantasy of Tolkien's 'Mordor.' The park has not really recovered from the '88 fires (and maybe never will, considering the recurring excess 'fuel' problem) and it continues to go up in flame periodically, as it likely always will. With no clean-up from the 'big' fire and no suppression of subsequent smaller fires, the once beautiful forests are now a thicket of lodgepole pine and not much else. The scorched landscape - burned trunks still sticking up through the pines nearly everywhere you look, along with the geysers, fumaroles, mudpots, steam vents and hot springs - certainly does suggest Mordor, but even more than fiction, brings to the forefront that this area is actually a Super-Volcano, very much alive and capable of an eruption that could possibly end life on earth.

The stuff of family vacations, for sure.

(And steam vents just stink. Not to put too fine a point on it.)

But - the variety of ways in which this super-volcano struts its stuff is astounding. It spouts water high in the air, plops mud about in little piles, boils ponds, vents great clouds of sulfurous steam, creates red and green and blue pools of water and algae, deposits terraces of 'stuff', spews nastiness of all sorts. And then it allows rivers, lakes and meadows to fill in around the edges, creating serene and beautiful landscapes only to slice through them with ferocious waterfalls that seem to cut down to the very bottom of the earth.

What a place.

I wanted to see it ALL. (Mark, not quite so much.) We did manage the geysers, the lakes, the Mammoth Hot Springs area, a hike to the Natural Bridge, Old Faithful (of course) and several of the waterfalls, including the Upper and Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River. We saw Bison (mostly singe males plodding along the roadway and stopping traffic, rather than big herds of them) and Elk (browsing on the lawn in the little town by Mammoth Hot Springs - not exactly 'wild' but close.) We didn't see any Bear or Moose. We were there late enough to avoid the worst of the crowds but too early for the fall color or too much in the way of 'mating season' frivolity.

There was no shortage of people-watching though. We were entertained by snatches of conversation exchanged by fellow hikers ("I had to train myself to be able to eat at any time when my husband worked swing shifts" struck us as hilarious given the size of the woman who gave off that comment... maybe you had to have been there) and by how many people just couldn't resist sticking their fingers in the boiling pools of water (Ouch!) to see if they were really hot. We had a very lengthy conversation with a rather drunk couple outside of the Lakes hotel one night that was quite entertaining but which they probably won't remember at all, and enjoyed listening in on explanations given by one tourist to another of the various natural phenomenem that were, evidently, a complete mystery to both parties (to this day, I'd have to say.)

Not that we can't entertain ourselves, if need be. We were gone for 11 days of Yellowstone sightseeing, Cody Wyoming museum-viewing, visiting Mark's Ancient Ones in South Dakota - not to mention 4 long days driving to those various destinations. Oh yes, we can entertain ourselves. Mark, for example, speculated for quite some time about how we might be completely overrun by insects if it weren't for vehicle windshields to mow them down. That was only to match my discourse on the perils of feather pillows - ending up with your head flat on the mattress with two flying buttresses aside your cheeks fluffed to the max with the feathers that are supposed to be cushioning your head, while the ends of the quills poke into your ears. And how is it that you can pass one after another of full road-construction crews bringing traffic to its knees, but not find a single person actually doing something instead of standing around? Entertain ourselves? Upon driving through Spokane and passing the 'Frankie Doodle' restaurant sign, Mark broke into a lovely re-interpretation of the traditional 'Yankee Doodle' song (all together now... ♪♫ "Yank my Doodle, it's a dandy" ♪♫) Who else knows a song?

(I realize, upon reflection, that perhaps I should have given a disclaimer, before that last bit, for the more delicate reader to be able to avert his or her eyes. Alas. I didn't.)

Anyway, I was going to share pictures...