I Traveled to Wyoming! (Part 2)

If you missed part one of my Wyoming posts, please click HERE!

Day 3: Yellowstone Round One!

We entered Yellowstone for the first time ever on this day!  At this point, we were experiencing so many emotions.  Jenna and I had been talking about taking this trip for years and it was just incredible that we were finally here in Yellowstone and everything we were seeing was just incredible and we were barely in the park!

The part that blew my mind the most I think was just seeing how varied the landscape in Yellowstone is.  One moment we needed to carefully creep down a mountain and around sharp turns and the next moment were cruising through open prairie land and have to stop for bison.  Not to mention all of the thermal activity here.  This place is... I need a couple more synonyms for incredible, but that just seems to be the word that fits.

My favorite part about Yellowstone overall was all of the thermal activity.  Before this trip, I had never seen a hot spring, a geyser, or anything like that.  We decided to follow the lower loop on this day thinking we would do the upper loop the next (spoiler: we never actually made it to the upper loop on this trip), and hot springs were the first thing we saw.

As you drive on the road, you can look across the lake and see giant clouds of steam indicating where hot springs are (and further into the drive, geysers too).  We pulled off to the side of the road because we saw a hot spring that no one was gathered around.  We quickly figured out that this was because it was blocked off with a fence.  You couldn't get too close.  I think we had found a relatively new spring and the land around it was kind of unstable.

But, us being us, we wanted to be rebels.  We stepped over the fence but didn't venture too far knowing that the earth's crust was weak in this area.  But there was a vent that we were curious about (see the video I sent to my husband on the left).  I don't recall having an experience quite like this one anywhere else in Yellowstone where we got close-ish to a vent.  It's like having a conversation with the earth... sharing its secrets.

We continued down the road just a little ways because there were other hot springs in an area called West Thumb that we were actually allowed to get close to because there were border walks all around.  These were different from the first hot springs we saw because these pools came in so many colors and they were the clearest pools I have ever seen.  And they were much deeper than I anticipated.  You would not want to walk through here without knowing that these pools were there.  We'd never see you again.  One strange thing we saw in this area that has nothing to do with the actual landscape was a woman walking around in high heels.  I can't even imagine.  I wonder if she understood what Yellowstone was... eh, maybe I'm being hyper-critical.

After getting lunch, we decided to drive over to see Old Faithful.  This was one of the big things that we (and pretty much every visitor to Yellowstone) were really looking forward to.  We ran over, got a front-row seat and waited, not catching on that there was a chart inside that gave a prediction of when the next eruption would be.  What I remember reading about Old Faithful is that it's not the biggest geyser and it's not the most consistent geyser, but it's the most consistent of the big geysers.  So they're able to predict within 10 minutes (I believe) of the next eruption.  There's an equation you can do, but you can look that up yourself if you're interested. 

Because we didn't know about the predictor within the visitor's center, we stayed on the benches for 1-1.5 hours or so.  And actually, that was kind of nice.  It was time spent out of the car, so Jenna took a rest and it was good people watching.  And it's just interesting to listen and watch for the signs of possible eruption.  Once it did go off, I was surprised by how quiet it was.  Yes, it's water being pushed up out of the earth, but I expected there to be a bang of some kind or that I would feel a shaking deep in the earth.  But that never happened.  It was very peaceful, like listening to a waterfall. 

After Old Faithful, we hopped back in the car for another few miles and went to go see Grand Prismatic Spring.  This was something neither of us had really heard of, but with a description like "prismatic," I was intrigued.  And Jenna ended up really liking it and wanted to go back later on after we left!

There were three enormous thermal pools there and the Grand Prismatic Spring is just one of them!  Because of all the thermal activity, there are so many colors that are activated in the area.  You can see cracks and ripples in the land, oranges, browns, and a most shocking blue in the pools.  What kind of blew my mind was that there were geysers in one of the pools.  I didn't know geysers could be underwater!  Nature is so cool. 

As we headed home, we completed the lower loop, but got stopped by an entire herd of bison on the way.  I really wanted to see a bison (because it had been years since I'd seen one in person) and luckily in Yellowstone, practically everywhere you look there are bison.  I had heard that they like to walk in the roads sometimes, but I didn't expected to see an entire herd stopping traffic going both ways!  If there is a traffic jam in Yellowstone, likely it's because of a bison.  I felt really lucky though because after the herd of bison moved off the road (back onto the same side they had come from, I got to see a mama and a baby up close.  Not so close where I could reach out and pet one (not that I would, but I wanted to), but probably about ten feet away.  And while I know that bison can charge and you need to stay something like fifty feet away from all wildlife, the bison was there by choice and didn't seem to mind being so near to cars.  So I was happy to see them so up close!

Day 4: Grand Tetons and Yellowstone Round Two!

If I remember correctly, Grand Tetons wasn't a place we initially expected to visit on this trip.  But when we saw pictures of how beautiful of a place it was and just how close to Yellowstone it actually is, we couldn't resist.  There was a lot of driving on this day, but the drive itself wasn't too bad.  I think we had just spent so much time in the car by this time that the trip felt longer because we wanted to be out.

We weren't that far into Grand Tetons National Park when we were hit over the head with just how beautiful this place was in person.  I'll put some pictures below of course, but seriously, it's like living in a postcard.  It almost didn't feel real.

I think the Grand Tetons is one of the most peaceful places I've ever been.  It took being just a handful of miles into the park to feel something melt away from me that I didn't realize I'd been carrying.  It's almost like when you look up at the stars on a perfectly dark and clear night and you can feel how small of a being you are compared to the rest of the universe.  I felt that same smallness near these mountains not just because of their size, but because of how beautiful they are.  I felt almost removed from what I was seeing.  I'm just a mere visitor in this place and how lucky am I that I get to see them in person.

This was more than just a nice drive though.  We actually got out and took a walk around a bit, since this was where we were planning to spend most of our day.  So we drove past the view of the mountains that are pictured above and went into the next town that we got to.  It's a resort town, so there were touristy things to see and do, but there were also nice smallish hikes that you can take nearby.  In one of the giftshops, I asked one of the women who worked there where we could potentially see bears.  She got really excited and told me where she and her friend were when they went to go hammock out on the point and saw (if I remember correctly) a mama bear and her cub.  Jenna and I decided to head out there too and take a look around.  We met up with a small group from New Jersey who had bear spray in their backpack and we hiked together for a while until we got back to town.  It was nice to talk to them for a while and we didn't see any bears.  We did see signs that a bear had been in the area recently, like scratches on trees still wet with sap.  Even just that was cool to find. 

We got back in the car and started heading back to Yellowstone, knowing that our drive was going to take a while and there were still things that we wanted to see in Yellowstone, especially because we knew that it would be our last day in the park on this trip.  Even though we had driven the entire lower loop, there were things that we had missed the day before. 

The first place we stopped was an overlook called Artists' Point.  The math teacher at my school has been to Yellowstone before and recommended to me that I visit the upper and lower falls that the point overlooks.  I refused to hike down to the falls, but was happy to be at Artists' Point. 

From there, there was more thermal activity to be seen, so we went on our way!  There were mud volcanoes that we had driven by the day before and I was super interested.  Especially because also the day before, I found out that there are different levels of acidity to the various types of thermal activity in Yellowstone.  Sometimes it's just hot water, but it can also be as acidic as battery acid.  Usually the mud volcanoes are that acidic.  There was a strong smell of sulphur in the air that we could pick up not just when we were standing outside, but also when we were just sitting in the car.  The smell was that strong. 

There were pools of mud bubbling because they were so hot and there was a cave where water moved in waves and blasted clouds of steam and made growling sounds like a dragon (ergo the name Dragon's Mouth Cave, or something similar to that). 

I was just in this constant state of awe at how cool this planet it.  I think Jenna and I still are, we keep talking about this trip so much.


We did more driving than we expected to do, but I think that's because our expectations were a little out of sync with reality.  I don't think I personally understood just how big Yellowstone National Park is despite the number of digital and paper maps I poured over leading up to this moment in our trip.  The park is enormous and you almost need a car in order to get around properly.  It would be really interesting to experience some of the hiking trails and maybe even biking through the park sometime though.  Guess that means I'll have to go back someday :)

I'll have one more post about this trip, but this was the last day we spent in the park.  The rest of our trip was spent in Cody, WY and making our way back home.

Thanks for Reading!

--Jude