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Published: July 24th 2017
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Prismatic Lake, ground view Mileage – 182.5
We started out in Montana at West Yellowstone with a later start today, but that was ok. I looked out the window and saw someone skateboarding by pulling a suitcase, ok. We left and headed into the park. Well, so far we’ve gone in the south gate, out the east gate, in east-north gate, and out the west gate. All we are missing is the north gate. No worries, we will hit that later today.
We get into the park and it is overcast. Will that be good for the Grand Prismatic Spring? We hope so.. We were sad last night when the colors weren’t good, so we really wanted to see good colors today. We go in and yes, they are much better but we only get a ground level view. We see what looks like an overlook. How do you get there??? Turns out it was what Stephanie told us about, a new trail. We drive down the road just a bit and hike in fairly level for a while and then head up a mountain …. wow, wow, we can see it from above. The colors in the pool are just great.
We then head north around the park and we pull off on all the side roads. We see more beautiful geysers and pools before heading into a special set of geysers. One semi-famous one had just erupted about 5 minutes before we got there. Sigh. But as we are sitting there, it does these little mini-eruptions…25 feet or so. We then drive just a bit to the White Dome Geyser. As we were walking in, we heard someone say that they heard it would erupt in about 15 minutes. So, we pulled the van up to a prime spot, opened the door and made lunch and waited. About 15 minutes later, Pam dropped the strawberry she was eating and stated, there she blows. I grab my camera and we all start snapping pictures… It sure was worth the wait.. lunch and a show.
Now today, we saw more dump people and heard more dumb comments. Someone jumped off the walk and started walking around on the ground. Really!!! There are signs EVERYWHERE that tell you it is hot and fragile and to stay on the path. Later someone else at the hot springs asked if the white under the
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The lake from the view we had to hike to boiling water was snow. At the next stop parents were telling their kids that volcanos erupt without any warning, just like Mt St Helens. Huh. First, yes, we knew it was going to erupt, just not the minute or day it would. But more importantly, good luck with your kids not having nightmares knowing they were walking around in a volcano that could erupt any second… That one falls under stupid parents. We are starting to write down all the stupid stuff people say – maybe it will be it’s own book later.
Along our drive we saw more streams, falls, geysers,….and yes, we saw folks jumping off of cliffs into the water. Go for it, not my cup of tea especially after all the warning signs…
As we were driving down the road we saw a Model T heading in the opposite direction. Of course we were on one of the side roads, there was traffic and nowhere to turn around quickly. We did finally turn around and try to find it so we could get a picture. Nope, I think they souped up that model T and they made a clean get away.
We then
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the sisters at the overlook headed to Mammoth Springs. I had been here over 10 years ago when I was on the trip with Nicky and Tim to get their cars to Stanford. Oh my, it was sad. When we came thru years ago, Mammoth Springs had a variety of colors. Today it is all orange and white and I assume the white is the dead bacteria flats that used to be so colorful. It was so sad to see. I had told Susan and Pam, that was so pretty and I was so disappointed. It was still great and totally different features but the colors were not there. I was so glad now we went back to the Grand Prismatic Spring this morning and saw such good colors there.
After Mammoth springs we left through the north gate and headed to our next stop, Bozeman, Mt. This was a 1.5 hour drive thru long straight sections, curvy, curvy, curvy, and long straight road, (rinse and repeat again and again). Pam says all of Montana looks like this. We finally arrive in Bozeman. It’s a cute little town and we head to the restaurant. Pam, it turns out, had a previous student and a
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little spring near the large one sister to one of Katelin’s friends (Loren) that now lives in Bozeman. She met us at the restaurant and we had a lovely conversation. We finished dinner and headed to the hotel. Tonight’s free hotel is a Holiday Inn Express.
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