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Published: June 29th 2009
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When I spend a day somewhere like Yellowstone, I have to wonder how ANYONE can question that there is a god. That place is amazing! I never imagined what it would be like. There aren't enough pictures in the world to make anyone really grasp the beauty that it Yellowstone, but I sure tried!! We left Idaho Falls yesterday morning, as early as we could, but not insanely early, and headed to Yellowstone. We stopped in the town of West Yellowstone and rented the neatest thing!It was a GPS tour guide! For a one day trip in the park, it was PRICELESS! We never would have learned what we did, or even known what we were looking at without it. It was like having a tour guide in the car with us! His voice was a little strange, but he was great! All along the route, he pointed out sites of interest, told stories about what we were saying, and told us all sorts of trivia. He also told us the best places to spot the animals that make their homes here. It's a good thing too! Thanks to that, we saw chipmunks, a bald eagle, MANY bison, antelope, deer,
American pelican, a grizzly bear AND a black bear!!!
We saw a shift in temperature of close to 30 degrees. When we entered Yellowstone, our thermometer said 88, and at one point, when we were as HIGH AS THE CLOUDS, the temperature was 62! We saw geysers, hot springs, paint pots, mud pots, thermal areas in which the water was just boiling, volcanic lava, raging rapids and SNOW all in one day!! We think we should definitely come back for a week to explore everything better, but we really saw so much yesterday, it was great!
Of course, the only thing that we knew we wanted to see was Old Faithful. Our handy little tour guide guy got us there. He had told us that Old Faithful erupts approximately every 90 minutes. We decided to go see what time it was expected to erupt, then we would wander around that area, eat lunch, etc until it was time. Not on our perfectly laid out trip! Marlowe looked at the chart. I asked him what time it should erupt. “2:28,” he said. What time is it now? “2:23!!” UNREAL!! So we walked right up, watched it gurgle
for a little bit, and then BOOM! It shot straight up! That was so neat!
We learned that when several cars were pulled over with cameras, there was some animal close by. Several times, the animals they were seeing were bison. By the end of the trip, it was as exciting to us as seeing cows in Georgia, but the first one? Well, I'll just tell you that I got so excited, I won't live it down for a while. We were pulled over to see a waterfall, and I looked back to see a bison, just about 15 feet from the car. I started trying to tell them, and the words wouldn't come, and when they finally did, I said, “GUYS, LOOK!!! It's a yak!! “ Needless to say, that line has been repeated over and over and over!! Oh well! It was neat! Ty was the first to spot the bald eagle. It was beautiful. We wanted so much to see a bear. We saw lots of people pulled over, so I got out. (By now, everyone was tired) I looked up the hill, but I didn't see anything. Finally I asked, and a girl pointed
it out way up the hill. I got it on video, but the sun was so bright in my eyes, and when I tried to switch my camera to still camera, I lost him in the viewfinder, but I got good video of the big grizzly bear! Then as we were heading out, the car in front of us stopped, so we looked, and just out of our driver's side window, up the hill maybe 50 yards was a black bear!! We got pictures and video of that one! It was so cute!! Of course, they remind you that they are all dangerous, and they will hurt you, so no one was tempted to get out!!
There were so many amazing things that I have never seen before at Yellowstone! On our way to Old Faithful, we went to the thermal area. It smelled HORRIBLE, but it was so interesting! It smelled like rotton eggs, because of the sulfur that is produced by the hot springs. There were all these different colored pools that just bubbled. A few looked like mud! Then there were geysers all along our route! It was indescribable!!
Finally, the kids got
to play in the SNOW!! There were patches of snow along the route, but at one point, our tour guide took us up this really steep grade, and there were whole big sections of thick snow! The kids got out and made snowballs! Of course, it was a bit scary, as just over one side was a dropoff like you wouldn't believe! To get out of the park, we had to climb major mountains! Our ears popped! My sinuses hurt, and we could look out our window to see clouds!!
We were determined to make it to Gillette, WY last night, and we did! Marlowe is one goal oriented somebody!! I did my best to stay awake to keep him awake, but I did have a couple of 5 minute catnaps!
We are now getting ready to head to Mount Rushmore!!
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Betty Jackson
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Thank you Alicia!!!
Thank you for being so faithful to share the pictures and your experiences in Idaho and your trip to Yellowstone and look forward to your trip to Mount Rushmore. Stay safe and Love you.