Friday, June 12, 2009

Hot Springs, Mud Pots, and Water Falls, OH MY!


This was the second day we explored Yellowstone, because just one day, as the guide books all tell you, is simply not enough (especially if your first day is in rain). The day began with the animals having a ride on a buffalo - a painted buffalo, that is.

We also admired the license plate, and accompanying sky, of Montana.

As we made our way into the park, we were in search of an eagle’s nest that the hotel clerk had assured us would be 3 miles after the park’s entrance. Approximately 6 miles in, there was an eagle management area and a nest (see video below for a picture of the eagle's nest).

Next, we decided to head to the impressive-sounding Roaring Mountain. While the mountain did not roar, and was a little bit of a let-down (even though we understand it was millions of years in the making, most likely), we did spot a sign that intrigued us on the way to the mountain that did not roar. It was an all-purpose “danger ahead.” We weren’t sure what type of danger to be on the look-out for, or how far ahead it was, but we stayed on our toes (well, on our bums, sitting in the car, but on high alert). Ironically, the most dangerous part of that stretch of road was getting the picture of the “danger ahead” sign.

After braving the danger of the sign, we headed to some falls. There are several in Yellowstone, and we started with the Lower Falls, since we got to them first (all photos of falls can be seen in the landscape video found below). While there, we encountered a man who mistook his keys for a q-tip, and mistook the parking lot for the bathroom or some other appropriate place to clean his ears. He noticed that we were wearing Red Sox hats, and predicted that, not only would the Red Sox make it to the Superbowl (yes Superbowl) this year, they would lose to the Dodgers, 4 to 3. Alas and alack, we have no picture of this. However, he was quite emphatic in his prediction, and you’ll just have to take our word for his existence.

Between Lower and Upper Falls, the animals made a new friend. His name is Cooter, and he gets to ride around on the back of a motorcycle. Cooter’s driver commented that she’d seen the animals at Grand Teton. When her husband offered to take a picture of us with the animals, Cooter’s driver explained (a bit disappointedly that he didn’t get it) to her husband that just our animals are supposed to be in the picture.

After the falls, we ran into (well, encountered) a traffic jam. We asked a ranger, who told us it was a bear trying to cross the road. We searched in the trees for the bear, and pondered why a bear might want to cross the road. With her eagle eyes, Michele confidently spotted the bear. I (Nancy) handed her my spiffy new camera. However, I’d just discovered a feature on it, which let me lock the lens in place. Michele, not knowing about the lock, took a far-off shot of the bear, wondering why she couldn’t zoom in. This gave us a “find the bear” picture. Alas and alack, when I went through the pictures this morning, I did not find the bear, and deleted the picture, figuring nothing much exciting was in it. So, you’ll just have to take Michele’s word for it that there’s a bear somewhere in Yellowstone, possibly named Yogi or Booboo.

After the bear were more animals – we saw some kind of sheep (probably bighorn), mule deer butt (and a face-forward shot – which is how we knew it wasn’t an elk we were spotting), and a dog (safely behind the door of a car). After these animals, we were very excited to spot a horned animal really close to the road. We think it was a velvet-horned elk (or so sayeth our memory of the book we looked at in the bookstore). We think it must have been young, or a rebel, since it wasn’t obeying the moon the tourist rule of the elk.

Next, we went to an area of the park described in our guidebook as being full of elk who harass the tourists. This concerned us a bit, but, since we’d braved the danger ahead earlier in the day with no problems, we ventured forth. We came to an area teeming with lounging elk. Happily, they did not harass the tourists. However, one did stalk off across the road, showing me its butt, once I had a chance to get my camera out. This was our last picture of elk butt in Yellowstone.

Before we left the park, we went on a quest for the subject of the picture on the free brochure we got at Yellowstone. It has colored rock and looked quite impressive. According to the caption, it’s Minerva Terraces. We braved the sulfur smell (which made me think of Lubbock, which has areas where the water smells like sulfur), and finally found our way to Minerva Terraces – where we found white, colorless rock, with no color at all. This both irked us and made us think that perhaps the park service should update their brochures. It felt a bit like a bait and switch. See the photos below for some of our favorite photos of landscapes from this trip.





On our way out of the park, we stopped by a sheep management area. We managed to see sheep in the sheep management area – much like we managed to see an eagle’s nest in the eagle management area. The slide show below exhibits the animals we saw in the park.


After having some dinner at a brewpub in Billings (along the way to which we happened upon a muffler man), we decided to drive a bit outside of town, to get started on our travels for the next day. Apparently, driving a bit to a hotel in Montana requires a bigger bit than we had in mind. After passing several exits with “no services” signs, we finally found an exit that had a picture of a bed. The picture of the bed appeared to refer to a long-closed hotel. At that point, both Sedwick and I needed to use the bathroom. Unfortunately, the lone gas station in the 50 or so mile radius was closed, so we had to settle for a scary-ass bar next door. Despite the fact that there were just 3 people in the bar (including the bartender), it might have been the fasted bathroom stop of the trip.


Finally, have a look at the several pictures of our animals from this trip.

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