Tumbleweeds Go!: October 2012

Day 7 Continued: Yellowstone National Park - Part 2

After Old Faithful, we were on our way to more "paint pots" (mudpots), the breathtaking Yellowstone Lake, the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and the Mammoth Hot Springs. The first half of the day was rainy and overcast, but from Old Faithful on, we had spectacular weather which made for truly inspiring views.

"Mud Volcano" footage:

I think the pictures speak for themselves. What an experience!

We are headed to Spokane, Washington tomorrow.

Day 7: Yellowstone National Park - Part 1

Yellowstone is hard to describe. It is unbelievable. There are sights that seem impossible and the beauty that surrounds you is literally jaw dropping. Most of the time, we were laughing out of astonishment and uttering "wow" when our brains could start working long enough to speak. Yes, it is that incredible.

We started our tour at the West Entrance to the park, which took us to our first geysers. The park is very easily accessible for tourists; Yellowstone is paved with a highway running throughout and boardwalks built to walk out, sometimes over a mile, to see what nature has to offer. The reason everything is up on boardwalks is because underneath much of the ground runs boiling hot water. Yellowstone is atop a large amount of volcanic action, with tremendous eruptions occurring 2 million, then 1.3 million and again 640,000 years ago. We both went into Yellowstone with no expectations and were completely blown away.

Here is some of the evidence:

The steam rises up from the hot springs, pools, mudpots and geysers...

The colored water is water-saturated sediment, which looks like mud. The colors vary; we saw reds, pinks, greys and browns.

Check out the video of the mudpot above bubbling away:

We spotted some Mule Deer on the side of the road. We also saw some Bison and lots of Ravens. No bears!

Some of the pools are an intense blue color, more vibrant even than the picture could relate, because of all the steam covering it.

The geyser above was spewing water and steam at a constant rate.

Check it out in action!

Above is the ground surrounding the area of a hot spring.

Some of these pools go incredibly deep...

The park is also home to several large waterfalls and cascades, like the one below:

Old Faithful!

More to come...

Day 6: Rapid City to Yellowstone

We got an early start today and drove from our hotel in Rapid City, South Dakota to Devils Tower in Wyoming.

Devil's Tower was named America's first national monument in 1906.

It is one thing to see something like this in a picture, but an entirely different experience when you’re standing at the base looking up at this massive structure.

It looks different from every angle. This giant is 867 feet from its base to its summit and stands 1267 feet above the surrounding terrain. It has a circumference of 1 mile.

The tower is considered sacred by Native Americans in the area and they leave prayers and gifts, like those in the picture below. There are signs asking visitors to leave these items alone to respect the tribes.

If you’ve seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind, you may remember Devils Tower looking something like this:

Here's what it looked like as we were leaving - that is a field full of cows below. Did we mention all the cows? They're absolutely everywhere. Along with almost as many horses. We also saw a field full of prarie dogs, too small and far away to photograph, but certainly plentiful.

After leaving Devil's Tower, we were on the road to Yellowstone via a long trek across Montana. The landscape was full of rolling hills and tiny towns with no more than 10 or so houses.

Eventually the mountains came into view in the distance...

Then we were driving right by. This view was incredible. Seeing these bits of the country make you think about the first people to see these things, and those pioneers traveling through.