YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, WY

We’ve spent four wonderful days at Yellowstone National Park.  Established in 1872, it is our nation’s first National Park and most famous.  It is the largest in the lower 48 and is known for its geysers and geothermal pools.  There are many steaming hot springs and thundering waterfalls.  Bear, elk, moose, bison, deer, bighorn sheep, coyote, and wolf can be found here.  Most traffic jams are due to wildlife deciding to take a stroll on the highway or just frolicking by the sides.  We’ll try to give you a taste with some pictures and video clips.

These pix are some of the hydrothermal features.  We saw geysers, hot springs, mudpots, and fumeroles.

Heat loving micro-organisms form ribbons of color.  They can live in waters as hot as 167 degrees.  As they cool different shades appear.

Here is a bubble bursting from a mudpot.

 

Here is a clip of a gurgling mudpot.

Here is  a clip of a fumerole.  It hisses and roars but contains very little water.

No tour would be complete without seeing "Old Faithful."  We watched with a few other tourists.

Our second day in the park must have been "Bison Show Day" as we saw so many of them. 

Here is a very good reason why it is so important to yield the "right of way" to pedestrians.

This one we caught rolling on his side to relieve an itchy back and then rocking so he could get up.

This one worked so hard we caught him napping.

One of the most breathtaking sights is the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

Another beautiful sight is Mammoth Hot Springs.  Mineral laden hot water from deep beneath the earth's crust works its way to the surface and builds layer upon layer of cascading terraced stone.  When we were here several years ago it was much more active.

We then went to Mammoth Lodge and saw the resident elk herd.

Hey mom, I'm thirsty