Wednesday we moved from Grand Teton National Park to Yellowstone National Park. Although these parks are next door to each other, they are totally different. Grand Teton is a flat valley bordered by these immense craggy mountains on one side and Yellowstone is an active volcano. Yes, I said active. All the geothermal activity shown by the geysers, mud pots, vents and pools is part of a volcano. The park is really a large caldera (volcano bowl). Yellowstone is also mostly covered in lodge pole pines.
It's really amazing. This morning we started at the south rim of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. Assuming Steve gets the camera to cooperate, I'll add pictures. My computer has decided it doesn't like the chip from Steve's camera. Here's our current computer set up. Steve has his phone hanging from the light fixture and a cable to my computer. We're hooked up through AT&T
The south rim of the canyon has Artist Point, which is a view back up the canyon to a water fall. You may have seen it in anything that references Yellowstone. I'll add a picture when I can.
We keep running into silver Prius and once again found ourselves parked by one.
I've gotten used to looking for a silver prius instead of a blue one. I wonder how long it will take me to switch back?
Loading photos is taking forever tonight, so I'll try to get a few up but not many.
Since Yellowstone is an active volcano, this area experiences frequent earthquakes. The ranger Steve spoke to said the earthquakes "change the underground plumbing" and things that were active become still and vice versa. One of the geysers recently erupted after 8 years and they have no idea when it might erupt again. Which is why Old Faithful is so amazing. It erupts every 40 - 100 minutes. We got to see it right after lunch.
We saw a few elk today, but today belonged to the bison (or buffalo). Traffic was stopped on the road and there was a small meadow with 5 or 6 bison, so Steve got out and took a few pictures. But it was obvious there was a greater attraction just over the hill. So I got behind the wheel to move up as we inched forward and Steve headed for the top of the hill on the other side of the road where 6 or 8 people were. Whatever he saw absorbed his whole attention and he did not notice that one of the bison was also climbing the hill. I can't yell, he can't hear me, chances are good the cell phones won't work, but luckily one of the other people there realized he didn't know what was going on and
got his attention.
got his attention.
He did get a good shot of that bison. What was capturing his attention on the other side of the hill was an entire valley of bison. We saw two more valleys of bison and a few close ups of some trying to cross the road. I'll come back and add photos when it won't take all night.
Well, we're having connection issues, so I'll sign off. More later
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