Two incredible days

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Today, thanks to the wonderful generosity of Pat and Jane Scanlon, I got to share in their exploration of Yellowstone by automobile.

Without them, I would have missed 95% of the park.

Yesterday, in my very brief blog, I mentioned that I met up with Pat and Jane at Lake Lewis, which is just short of Grants Village in the Center of the park.

( Coincidentally, Pat and Jane live in San Diego!)

Prior to that my ride went right through Grand Teton National Park which is stunning as well.

Pat and I rode another 60 miles yesterday to West Yellowstone, Montana, just 1/4 mile from the Park’s West entrance..

I’m in the Madison Hostel and Pat and Jane are at a RV park a couple of blocks away.

Early this morning, the Scanlon’s picked me up and we went to see as much of the Park as we could; and we saw a lot.

Yellowstone is so magnificent because it is actually sitting on a 35 mile by 50 mile Volcanic Caldera.

The Caldera was formed by one of the largest Volcanic eruptions that have ever occurred!

There were three major eruptions on this Hot Spot!

The first was 2.1 million years ago, and the most recent; the one that formed this present day Caldera was 640,000 years ago.

What we the visitors get to see are geysers, bubbling mud pools, steam coming out of river beds, rainbow colored bubbling lakes, steaming water falls of multi colors, and wild animals galore.

I knew about Old Faithful of course, but I never imagined the other wonders of the Park!

We were very blessed to see two of the rarer geyser eruptions happen just by happenstance.

Old Faithful was small by the standards of these eruptions.

I wish I could show some videos so you could really grasp the wondrous power of the water exploding out of the earth.

I spent some time looking at my hundreds of photographs to try and find some of my favorites.

I selected 21of them to try and give a sample, but you really have to visit!

Unfortunately, still pictures really don’t do justice to what this park is about!

Much of the sensual overload is caused by the amazing sounds of the water steaming, bubbling, percolating, boiling, blowing and blasting out of the ground.

Another serendipity of our visit was the thrill of being able to watch a grizzly and her cub just strolling through a meadow near the road!

Tomorrow the westward journey begins again.

Pat and I decided we will stick together through Montana.

(Montana is now my eighth State!

Once we get to Missoula, Pat goes North toward Seattle and Bruce Tipton joins me for the third time, ( how cool!), and we will continue West towards Florence Oregon.

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Photos

Paint pots
It doesn’t look all that cool until you see it bubbling out of the ground like mud.

Fountain Geyser only erupts every 8-12 hours.
We were standing there looking at a dry hole in the ground when it all of a sudden started going off!

Another look at Steamboat geyser.
It will last for about 12 more hours and go dormant for a month or more.

My Hostel
It is a historic West Yellowstone Hotel.

Comments

[BT]

Yellowstone
Wow, what great photos! How fortitius to have company through Montana and a guided tour of Yellowstone...just awesome. Be safe and see you soon