August 5 – Yellowstone! (absurdly picture heavy)

Our campground was on Yellowstone Lake, and it was mighty cold that night, but the morning was fabulously beautiful and clean and clear, and it was worth it.

The day was about a driving adventure around the main figure-eight loop of Yellowstone Park. We went first to Natural Bridge! It was a short hike, but it was mosquito-ridden, so I particularly covered myself in Deet and we all were on the look-out for mosquito landings.

(bear claw marks!)

Then we went on to another set of thermal features.

This one was a roiling sulfur pool. Although it was scalding hot, it was not boiling, and the huge bubbles coming up were bubbles of gas escaping from deep in the earth.

Then, as we headed towards Canyon Village (where we would have lunch), we were waylaid by a multitude of bison, both on the sides of the road, and standing in the road.

Then there was another herd.

And another.

And one incoming!

After lunch we drove on to Mammoth Hot Springs and the Terraces.

Here you can see the smoke from the wildfire by the Northeast(?) Entrance.

We arrived at the Terraces to discover that, in fact, they were dry.

They were beautiful dry, a perfect pristine snow white, with hundreds of little pools and dike walls, the deposits of limestone from underground.

There was water running in a few places.

We hiked around to the top of the hill, and behind it, to where the water was running a little more enthusiastically.

We tried to drive then south from Mammoth Springs to Norris and thenceforth on to Grant Village, but the road was closed, so we turned back and went down the east leg of the loop again. At Canyon Village, we turned West, and went around the south west side of the 8, to go past Old Faithful.

We stopped (rather abruptly) for the Artist’s Paint Pot mud pool, which I was very pleased about. It was really cool.

The last sight of the day, right as we came up to the turn off for Grant Village, was a male elk.

And then back to camp for sausages and green beans!

August 4 – Idaho, Montana, and Yellowstone, Wyoming

Today we left Ogden, UT, somewhat early and drove almost all day, trying to get to Yellowstone by evening.

We spent a lot of time driving in Idaho.

And a tiny bit of time driving in Montana.

We saw a bison, just walking on the side of the road.

And we stopped for the Mountain Man Rendezvous (Public Welcome!) to ogle and shop.

Then we made it to Yellowstone! This was a crowning achievement, because we had all agreed back at Arches that although we were tired and a little out of motivation to last two more weeks, we did indeed want very much to see Yellowstone. The Grand Canyon was one thing, but it felt like the two together would be a pair of epic summer coolness.

We paused a few times on our way from the West Entrance to our campground at Grant Village.

First we stopped at Fountain Paint Pot.

(holy crap geyser!)

Then we stopped at Biscuit Basin!

And the last stop before we headed for the campground (around 4:30, predicted eruption 5:23), was Old Faithful.

We were suitably impressed.