On July 10th, 2010, Jeff and I flew out of Baltimore to Salt Lake City and rented a car. Let me add, we woke up at 2:30AM to fly out of Baltimore at 7AM. It was a 5 hour flight and we landed in SLC at 10AM their time, which was noon our time. Oh, wait, we LANDED at 9:30, but they didn't have our gate open so we sat on the tarmac for 45 minutes before being allowed off the place. Remember this... it will become the theme of our airplane adventures this trip.
But one thing that we really wanted to do when we landed in SLC was to drive to see the salt flats (which we could see from the plane). One of our favorite movies is "Word's Fastest Indian" with Anthony Hopkins (I recommend it!) was filmed here. It is MILES and MILES of salt. Super cool!
Ok, so we got to West Yellowstone at about 6:30pm MDT, which was 8:30pm our time. My parents were already their in their RV, where we would be staying. They had already been on a week of vacation and this was their second week, with us! We ate the wonderful dinner my dad had prepared for us and collapsed into bed at about 10:30MDT, which was 12:30EST. Yes, we were up for 20 hours, traveling for most of those hours and we were EXHAUSTED!
Sunday, July 11th- HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!! :) What a wonderful way to spend my birthday: on vacation in YELLOWSTONE with my husband and my parents! It was a great birthday!
We had just barely entered the park when we came upon this amazing view:
It was in the first little bit of Yellowstone that we came upon Jeff's first bison sighting: (My parents and I had been in Yellowstone 16 years ago and I do remember the bison from the trip! I have a funny story about bison later on... stay tuned!).
These brave souls were flyfishing in the same area as the bison. It made for a great picture though!
This was Jeff's first hot spring. The water is boiling and you can smell the sulfur in the air (which smells like hard boiled eggs, or a resemblance of the Spring Grove Glatfelter Paper Mill, if you know what that smells like).
In the 1980's, Yellowstone had a horrific forest fire. Over 75% of the park was burned. I will add some details about the trees later, but one interesting note is that because it is so cold here, the trees do not break down so they remain in form, either standing or laying. It really made for beautiful pictures!
This is the Ojo Caliente Spring.
...and because it was so warm from the boiling water, plant life grew in the river. It was neat to see!
And sometimes, when you look off into the distance, you can see steam from other springs and geysers in the background.
We came across a boardwalk path that was very neat. It took us past this area, which was so neat. It was formed from an earthquake. The puddle looking thing in the front is boiling mud, and the steam you see coming from the back is VERY loud. It sounds like a machine. It was very neat!
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Once back in the truck, we travel on and come across another bison, giving a beautiful picture!
And of course we had to stop at Old Faithful, which was so kind to go off EXACTLY at the time I was born, 1:27pm EST! So cool that it went off at that time! Old Faithful goes off every 90 minutes +/- 10 minutes and can shoot over 100 feet into the air!
We are graced with views with this as we take random pull offs for scenic views.
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And when we get a full view of Yellowstone Lake, we are blessed with a view of snow capped mountains and a very dynamic sky.
There was a forest fire last year, 2009. While this picture is sad, it is beautiful. In a few years you will see trees growing amongst the dead trees.
This is called Dragon's Mouth and the water waves in and out, while steam is coming out. It looks like a Dragon's Mouth, hence the name.
Near Dragon's Mouth is Mud Volcano. Years ago, a hole started to spew mud, and now it leaves us with this mud volcano.
Toward the end of the day we came across Sulfur Cauldron. The pH level of Sulfur Cauldron (which had an INTENSE sulfur smell) was 1, which is 1 below battery acid, which has a pH of 0!
And this elk so nicely started to pee as I took the picture. :/
Day 2 started with an "animal jam", which is caused when lots of cars stop to view an animal. Usually it is just bison or elk, but when we saw what came wandering down the road we felt that waiting was worth it. It was a coyote!
We made a stop at a beautiful small creek so my mom could stick her feet in the ice cold water, which is usually snow runoff.
When we stopped to view the Upper Falls in the canyon, an Elk was eating within 10 feet of the crowd. The park rangers did a wonderful job controlling everyone and making sure they stay away from the animals. It was amazing how many people thought that they were in a petting zoo and could just go and pet the animals. We had seen two elk eating on the side of the road and pulled over to take pictures and an RV pulled up in front of us. Out comes running 3 children, followed by their parents a few minutes later. We drove away before we saw what happened. These are DANGEROUS animals and people don't realize that. I just heard that a woman was attacked by a bison in Yellowstone, and it was probably because she was too close.
But once we pulled ourselves away from the elk, we saw this amazing view of the Upper Falls. We were later at the bring of the Upper Falls, which were so cool!
Not all of Yellowstone is stops to walk to view beauty. Beauty is all around, and this is just one example. This was just gorgeous and it was just along the drive that I snapped the picture.
The trees at Yellowstone are called Loggerhead Pines and they require fire for the seeds to germinate and start growing. The bare trunks were from the fire in the 1980's and the trees that are growing have all started to grow since then. It was very beautiful.
We were up close and personal with snowcapped mountains, including driving through them and being next to snow. It was so amazing.
And then we came across a black bear! My first ever bear sighting! And yes, I was very close, however I had a plan of what to do if the bear got angry (which may or may not have including pushing the guy in front of me over so I could run away... ok so I probably wouldn't have. But I didn't have to be the fastest, runner, I just didn't want to be the slowest! And I did have cars all around that I could have jumped in, including my dad's truck, which was right behind me. So I wasn't a stupid as it seems!).
The sky at Yellowstone was so incredibly dynamic.
My favorite part of Day 2 was seeing Mammoth Springs. The colors and views were so vibrant. Here are a few pictures, which really don't do it justice.
If you look close, you can see an endless pool effect. Remember this. I have pictures from the front (the waterfall section), which are neat!
So that was Yellowstone, the most amazing National Park I have ever been to. It was incredible and I am so glad I went. I can't wait to go back and spend more time there.
And the low for the country at night was at West Yellowstone, which made me happy to hear considering we were in 100+ degree weather when we left home.
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We left Yellowstone (sadly) and headed to South Dakota (which was a very long, but scenic drive). This is a picture of my parents' pulling their RV. We followed them in our rental.
It was also here that we came across Jeff's first bison herd! It was so neat to see! These bison were on a mission, heading somewhere!
16 years ago, when my family first traveled out here, we came across our first bison herd. My dad stupidly got out of the car to video tape them, and one bison became agitated and went after my dad, causing my dad to jump into the van through my door and push me out of my seat so that he could close the door and stay safe. We were wondering if this could be the bison that did that.... (probably not though. They thin the herd depending on the availability of grass to feed them). That trip 16 years ago was also the trip that my dad was chased down the road by a mother moose after he got out of the car to get pictures while we were taking a bathroom break in the camper (and after the chase I'm sure my dad needed a bathroom break!). He decided to stay in the car when he saw the rattle snake that was hit by a car and very angry!
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These badlands were caused by a volcano and then wind erosion. It was incredible to see the colors!
Just imagine you were a pioneer coming across the prairie in your wagon and all of the sudden you go over a hill and see this:
We then said goodbye to my parents and headed east to cut out some of the 10 hour trip to Minneapolis. We drove for 5 hours (well 6, if you count that we were already an hour away from the campground) and then stopped in a hotel for the night. We got up and headed north to Minneapolis to visit Gina and Sam! Gina and I went to high school together and became friends around the time we were planning our weddings. It was so nice to visit good friends and we can't wait to go visit them again!
On Saturday, July 17th we headed home... or at least TRIED. This picture was a joking picture, but little did we know how well the picture foreshadowed the evening/night we were about to endure.
It was an amazing, and eventful vacation! If you made it this far you deserve a reward (but don't you feel like those pictures were rewarding enough?!?!). We can't wait to go back to Yellowstone and I would love to move to Montana. It was so awe inspiring out there, and even Minneapolis was wonderful (I'm not a city person, but this was a great city!). What a wonderful trip. I am blessed to be able to take a trip that wonderful.
2 comments:
That looks like a lot of fun!! I have never been out that way before and I would love to go!
The vacation looks like it was lots of fun.....and you are looking fantastic these days, it must be all that running you are doing!!!!
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