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Published: August 13th 2009
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Me at Mammoth
Wish I had a comb LOL Mammoth Hot Springs is the prettiest - imho - of all of the hot spots in the park. Sad part is, a great deal of it is no longer running. When ever there is an earthquake of any sort it changes the flow of the different hot springs and geysers. I remember visiting about 15 years ago and much more of it was running at that time. But what was running was incredibly beautiful. The rocks are actually growing because of the carbon in the water building up. There was one spot that the ridges had built up around and had gotten dry. When you looked into it - it was like a mini forest of rock in there. I could not find my camera at the time I saw it and after I found it and went back the water had broken through and was no longer dry. Very irritated with self over missing that picture.
But the colors created in the hot pools, because of the bacteria in it, is incredible. You can actually see how hot the water is by the color of bacteria. The coolest being brown and the hottest being the yellow.
Excelsior Geyser
Ok, this huge thing is one geyser. It last erupted in 1985 and went on for 47 hours and shoots about 300 feet high. Now that's lot of hot water! It was more active before this. They have records of it shooting off way back in 1880's.
What really got me about this area - other than the beauty of the whole thing - was the stupidity of what was on the signs. At the bottom of the signs it states that they are studying this so they can have some kind of an idea of what might be living on other planets. I stood there and laughed - actually did it out loud! Partly out of frustration of the fact that my tax dollars are going to pay for research of possible 'alien life forms' and because it just goes to show how far gone modern scientist are to have such unrealistic speculations. No I do not believe in the religion of evolution! It takes far too much faith to believe we could have evolved out of rock soup and has far too many holes in it to even be considered a theory any more.
(Puts soap box away.)
They believe that Yellowstone is a huge inverted volcano. It makes sense with all of the hot stuff coming to the surface. There are often earthquakes here. We did not have one while I was there - but because I live semi close we do get information on the happenings of earthquakes at other times. It is worse than California.
Old Faithful
Ok, no trip to the park is complete without a trip to see Old Faithful. Although I have seen it several times in the past, it still takes my breath away. It now runs about every 1 hour 45 minutes.
While waiting for it I went and got us some 'ice cream' that was actually yogurt from Old Faithful Lodge. There are a few other shops there as well as a mechanic for those who break down in the park.
Parking - even thought the traffic is lighter than normal - was still on the tight side.
Camp Visitor
Neilcurtis - my DIL's brother looked up and said, "Look there's a buffalo." It was coming right towards our camp. I had pancakes on
what fire we could keep going. Stupid sappy wood was really hard to get any heat out of. So I handed my camera to my son and he started snapping pictures. But it kept coming closer... and closer ... and time to jump in vehicles!
He came right up through the campground. We watched as he slowly walked up and we hoped he would not:
a) charge one of the vehicles
b) decide to take a nap
Buffalo go where buffalo want to go.
He/she (I wasn't getting close enough to find out which it was) bushed up against this vehicle as it left our campsite and went on to the next.
I had realized that I had not taken the pancake off the fire before running for the vehicle and was hoping had had not ruined the pan. It wasn't a problem. Not only was the pan not ruined, but the fire - due to lack of constant stoking had gone out and the pancake was still raw. If you go camping here - bring some of your own wood. The stuff they sell at the campgrounds is way too sappy!
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Sharing the Journey
Alec & Cindy Sharp
That was one big buffalo!
Wow .. I would hate to hit that while riding down the road!