This morning, I silently curse Uncle Tom. Amazingly, neither one of us has sore muscles, but we each have a hip that is cranky from the walk yesterday. It is cold and wet again today. I have included a picture of the rainbow at the foot of the falls we saw courtesy of Uncle Tom. We saw some crows walking on a steaming hill that was funny, because they were walking really, really fast! We headed up to an area called Fountain Paint Pot Trail, where we saw more bubbling mud pots, fumaroles, spasm geyser (cool name), and a raven that [View Full Entry]

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Finally - a sunny day! We head towards Norris - another hydrothermically active area of the park. We see Steamboat geyser, which is just spurting a few feet right now. It's still pretty impressive. Norris is one of the most active earthquake areas of the park. Small earthquakes trigger changes each year in the hot springs and geysers. Many hot springs and fumeroles (steam jets) have temperatures above the boiling point. There are also many acidic geysers here, which are rare in the rest of the world. We walk along boardwalks across the hot, acid waters of Percelain basin. The smell [View Full Entry]

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It poured rain all night, and we woke up to near freezing temperatures. It is grey and drizzling, but we dress in layers and venture out anyway. Elk were grazing right in front of the Mammoth Hot Springs hotel. Whee the bull was, rangers had the road blocked off so people couldn't get too close. Fall is their mating season, making them agressive and more likely to charge your car. We buy a hot drink to warm our hands, make a sandwich, and move on. Mammoth Hot Springs is one of the park's most active hydro-thermal areas. A huge underground magma [View Full Entry]

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Woke up to rain. Decided to pick up some groceries. Things are cheaper here than at home. Beauty supplies like shampoo and face creams at Wal-Mart are half of what we pay at home. I stock up! We are passing through another little town in Montana called Joliet. Whoa! Stop! Go back! Charles Ringer Studio and Gallery has metal sculptures like I've never seen before. Gas pump hobos with their wine bottle, warming their hand at the burning barrel. How funny is that! Going through the Beartooth pass, we get as high as 12,000 feet. Lots of switchbacks up the mountain, [View Full Entry]

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Maybe it's not the destination that matters. Maybe it's the journey. Mapquest said that this would take 7 hours. But we found lots of things to see and side trips to take, so it took 12 hours. Driving through Fortuna, SD, we came across an abandoned military radar tracking station. Steve remembers going there in about 1963, while he was in the air force. It was part of the high line, which is/was the most northern radar tracking in the US. Wheat fields in Saskatchewan, changed into scrub and ranch land in South Dakota, which turned into corn fields in Montana [View Full Entry]

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Armed with some information from the internet, maps and books from CAA, and reservations for accommodations based on reviews from Trip Advisor - with best and cheapest being the criteria, we are almost ready to go. Weather forcasts say expect daytime highs in the teens (celsius - translates to the 60's F), with night time lows close to freezing. Brrr! As if summers aren't short enough as it is! We are also prepared for some thundershowers - so we pack pretty much everything in the closet. They say planning is half the fun. (Who are THEY anyway?) [View Full Entry]

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