The Avid Reader (and enjoyer of all subjects)

We woke up at around 7:30.  My parents instantly pointed out that our supplies were diminishing, so we went 3 miles to Cooke City to buy some food (my sister got Pringles, my mom got dried apples, and I got salted peanuts) and get some gas.  Then, we set off immediately for Wyoming–and Yellowstone.

When we entered the park, there was no sign of wildlife–because most animals are shy and afraid of visitors.  However, after some minutes, we caught sight of a bison grazing.  Pretty soon, we arrived at Lamar Valley again.  This time, we saw two pronghorns, one male and one female.  Also, pikas were present in profuse amounts.  We also stopped for a bathroom break and saw some swallows’ bird nests.  They were everywhere, in their nests at one moment and out catching insects the next.  There were a few bison in the background.

Once we had passed Lamar Valley, we went on the mountains, headed for Mammoth Hot Springs.  My dad had planned to climb Mount Washburn again to view the beautiful sunrise, but it was already too late for that, and I didn’t want another ordeal.  In a forest, we suddenly came upon some heavy traffic.  I saw something big with antlers, and thought it was a moose.  However, one visitor told me that it was a bull elk.  After minutes of fawning over the animal (some people were a few feet away snapping picture after picture), one impatient tourist told everyone that it was illegal to be that close to the elk–visitors had to stay at least 25 yards away from all animals besides bison and wolves (visitors needed to stay a football field’s length away from those animals).  Everyone piled into their cars, but still it created a huge traffic jam.

After driving some more, we came upon another group of parked cars and a row of tourists with binoculars.  They were looking in the distance, but we couldn’t see anything.  A passerby told us that there was a grizzly bear hiding in the shadows of the trees.  Suddenly, I caught sight of a brown mass lumbering away.  It was obviously the grizzly!  I showed my parents and sister the location.  Other visitors claimed they had seen a coyote, and my parents saw it too, but I didn’t.

We at last reached Mammoth Hot Springs.  First, we had lunch there.  (Only I had a “real” lunch; my dad had a small apple turnover, my sister had a cranberry juice drink, and my mom had a banana and peach.)  Very near Mammoth Hot Springs, there were some mule deer.  I spotted a cluster of them laying by a building.  Mammoth Hot Springs required quite a lot of walking, especially up mountains, and I imagined a much more beautiful scene.  I guess Mammoth Hot Springs would have to be my “Most Disappointing Attraction”.

Our next–and final–stop would be the Norris Geyser Basin.  During the trip there, my dad found another bull elk eating plants.  Nobody had seen it yet.  Soon, one truck came over.  Another car which had been going the opposite way backed up to see it.  We avoided the crowd just in time!  We also came across a cliff called the Sheepeater’s Cliff.  Named after the Sheepeater Indians who lived in the area, the cliff is a bunch of rocks that rise up, resembling an exponential function (rather, a logarithmic function reflected over the x-axis).  My sister and dad tried to climb the cliff, but my dad would only allow my sister up to the point when the cliff started zooming up almost vertically.  My acrophobic fears made me avoid the cliff altogether.  After that, we arrived at Norris Geyser.  Norris Geyser is the hottest geyser basin in Yellowstone.  It contains Steamboat Geyser, the world’s tallest erupting geyser; and Echinus Geyser, the world’s largest acidic geyser.  We did see occasional eruptions of water from Steamboat Geyser 5-10 feet, but unlike Old Faithful, Steamboat Geyser is not predictable, and it could be from 4 hours to over 10 years between eruptions.  When Steamboat Geyser is about to erupt, neighboring Cistern Pool drains of water.  I was anxious to see if this had happened, but unfortunately we could not locate Cistern Pool.  Still, the walk around the geysers was perfect except for the rotten egg smell (sulfur) and the lack of supposedly abundant wildlife.  My dad and I wanted to view nearby Porcelain Geyser Basin (my mom and sister headed for the museum to avoid the odors), but we didn’t get to see much of it because my mom and sister called my dad and I over to the museum (which was composed of two rooms).

After viewing the museum, we had to say good-bye to Yellowstone.  It had been a VERY lovely stay, exceeding already-high expectations, well worth countless more visits, unlike any other park we had seen, and certainly one place we will visit again next year.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 29th, 2009 at 10:21 pm and is filed under Fun. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.