Yellowstone Day 2 - Water Going Up

If yesterday was all about water going down - waterfalls, then today's theme would have to have been water going up, as in hot springs, fumaroles, mud pots, and of course, geysers.  Yesterday we explored the north part of Yellowstone and today we visited the western side where most of the hot spots are.  Most of Yellowstone is the mouth of a super-volcano and is still very active.  Hot magma below the surface heats underground water that boils and comes to the surface through cracks in the bedrock in the form of hot springs, geysers, etc.  
Our first stop today was Norris Geyser Basin .  We followed wooden walkways from one hot spot to the next.  In some places water is boiling just under the surface of the ground, and what looks like solid ground can really be a thin layer of sediment and one could easily fall through into the hot water.  The water is often acidic also, so they have built wooden walkways everywhere so people can get up close to the geothermal features without danger.
This was steamboat geyser. It spouted water in two directions pretty constantly, but it has been known to really shoot up very high from time to time.
At another geyser basin we saw Morning Glory spring, a hot water spring that is famed for its amazing color - an amazing turquoise surrounded by bright orange.  All the color comes from the microorganisms that live in the hot water.  The orange part is called a "bacterial mat."  Gross, huh?  But it is really beautiful.  Once again, the photo doesn't do it justice.

We did A LOT of driving in Yellowstone.  It is unbelievable how HUGE that place is.  It takes several hours to drive through it, or to drive from one site within it to another.  Nobody seemed to mind all the driving however, because all of it was so amazingly beautiful.  There was so much beauty to take in, and around every turn there was another sweeping vista, ominous rock formation, steaming hot spot, tumbling waterfall, or unexpected wildlife too see.  Everybody was always keeping an eye out for animals.  We saw a lot and imagined a few as well, I suppose (a lot of branches look like antlers, and stumps can be mistaken for bears as first glance).  It was fun to keep an eye out.
We stopped at all the thermal features along the road .  This one turned out to be quite a tough hike up a hill (especially for Dennis who was carrying Luke), but I thought it was worth it when we got up there.  They were the Artist's Paint Pots, or mud pots.  They are basically bubbling mud.  They got the name because they are sometimes very colorful from the microorganisms that I mentioned already, but today they were pretty much grey.  They were really fun to watch, kind of mesmerizing, like watching a lava lamp.  There were two different pools.  One had thinner, more watery mud, and the bubbles were smaller and faster, and looked like a simmering pot of soup.  The other pot was much thicker mud, like wet clay and the bubbles were big and fat and would come up to the surface slower and expand and burst with a hiss and a bubbling sound.  Big gobs of mud would blop out and sometimes shoot out far.  Were were standing on the platform that was about ten feet away, and it was covered with splattered mud.  On little girl standing next to us started screaming when a big blob of hot mud landed in her hair.  It was really wild.  We were there a long time watching the strange scene.  At one point, Dylan dropped the camera off the platform, luckily onto solid ground, but I had to hold him by the ankles so he could hang down and get it.  I didn't get a picture since I was a little preoccupied with holding his ankles.
Luke is fascinated by the mud "bo-bos".

We drove to another geyser basin where there was a lot of thermal activity.  We got to this geyser just as it was about to blow...

When the wind changed direction, we all started getting wet.

Of course, no trip to Yellowstone would be complete without a visit to the epitome of water going up, the king of all geysers, Old Faithful - now erupting every 91 minutes, give or take.  This of course was the most tourist trappy part of the park, but it wasn't bad a far as tourist traps go.  There were some benches set around, a web-cam watching from a nearby treetop, and a predicted next eruption time scribbled on a whiteboard, but basically they let Mother Nature be the star of her own show.  I was glad about that. 

 
Caleb and I kill some time on a twig rocker on the porch of the general store while waiting for Old Faithful to get ready to for her next performance.

Luke killed time by eating an "Old Faithful" candy bar - chocolate, obviously.





The predicted eruption time was just about right.  That water shot right up into sky in just the time it took me to snap these pictures.  It went pretty high - maybe 40 feet.  It was exciting.  Mom watched on her computer on the web cam. 

Having seen enough water going up for one day, we made our way out of the park to the town of West Yellowstone, Montana, where we did  a little shopping for souvenirs (There are a lot of gift shops in Yellowstone NP, but they are all exactly the same with the same merchandise) and supplies (though we were frustrated to find that there was not a can-opener available in the whole town!)

We saw this rowdy posse of cowboys around town looking for trouble. 

 We tried to stay clear of them, but they kept following us around.

We were driving and saw a bunch of cars stopped on the side of the road.  The kids were really hoping it was a buffalo.  They have been looking forward to seeing some buffalo and have been disappointed so far.  It wasn't buffalo, but this small group of elk feeding near a river.  It was really a lovely scene.  They didn't even seem to notice us.

We did see these two wild beasts going at it and I got one good photo before they turned on me and I barely escaped with my life from being gored by their sharp antlers!  Harrowing!

We got back to our campsite after dark, and still had to make dinner and clean it all up.  It was pretty late, and pretty cold by the time we hit the sack.