Day 4

Day 4

Dan here…

Kari and I awoke this morning from the Super 8 Motel located in Cooke City, MT high in the mountains above Yellowstone National Park. Today was going to be our day to do as much as we could in the park. The main route through Yellowstone is a figure 8 road that takes you by almost all of the main attractions. But the shear size of the park is enormous, so if you ever get the chance to come to Yellowstone, try and stay longer than a day. We started through the mountain pass and eventually got to the entrance to the park.

As we drove along the northeast side of the park, we were following the Yellowstone River. The road had occasional pull-offs to allow stunning views of the river cutting through the canyon.



We continued south to see the Tower Falls and then further south to the “Grand Canyon” of Yellowstone. Tower Falls was very pretty but didn’t hold a candle to the Canyon Falls. The waterfall at the canyon, was much more powerful and the water turned to rapids at its base. The rapids continued for miles. It was beautiful. The water was a very saturated turquoise and the rock walls were a shade of orange and red. It was very striking to see and was very, very far down from our view point on the southern rim of the canyon.




Next we headed west to the Lower Geyser Basin. It was pretty awesome to see, but smelt horrible. Sulfur is not your nose’s friend. The colors of the area were beautiful though. The bacteria that grow are bright reds and yellows. There was steam coming out of dozens of spots. The area is still very active with geothermal activity. Its amazing that almost the entire park is one big super volcano that will indeed explode one day, which will completely destroy most of North America. Perhaps it will happen in 2012… wait… that’s next year. Damn those Mayans.

After leaving the Lower Geyser Basin, we headed south to the Grand Prismatic Springs. This was one of the coolest things I saw in the park. The pools of water were steaming and visible from quite a distance. Pics below. The colors were vivid and the area is very volatile. They warn that new pools show up all the time and that the heat coming from the ground can melt your boots, so you have to be careful where you walk.

Next we headed even further south to the famous Old Faithful. Kari and I drove up to the area and we felt like it was the most important thing to see in the park considering they have massive parking lots and hotels surrounding it. We sat on a bench surrounding the geyser along with about 500 other people. We were expecting a massive explosion and a burst of water up in the air. But… in the end, all we got was a slow build up to the geyser quietly spitting water in the air. We were very under whelmed. Perhaps we built it up in our heads too much. We wanted the Michael Bay version of a geyser, I guess. We needed huge sound effects and a rumbling in the ground. Didn’t happen. We both felt like snobs as we walked away from Old Faithful, under whelmed. Oh well. Still pretty cool though.



After a full day at Yellowstone and seeing so many beautiful pieces of nature, our time constraints took us south toward the Grand Teton mountains. It took us about 45 mins to get from Yellowstone National Park to Grand Teton National Park. The car in front of us had to swerve pretty hard at one point to keep from hitting a massive deer… I think. It looked like a deer, but was about 3 times the size of what I am used to seeing. Who knows. Maybe it was bigfoot. Then we could see the Tetons in the background. This was my first glimpse at the image I have always had in my head of what the Rocky Mountains looked like. They were jagged, tall, and rocky. I love seeing mountains made of more rock than vegetation. It’s such a cool thing to see. The sun was starting to set and it was beginning to get late. We got to watch the sun fall behind the mountains as we approached our destination for the evening.




We pulled into Jackson, WY around 8:30pm. Jackson has a population about 8,500 and sits at an elevation of about 6,200 ft. Its one of the most prestigious ski resorts in the world. But it was pretty beautiful in the summer as well. We were staying at a Best Western Lodge, which actually ended up being a really comfortable place to sleep.

Unfortunately for us, we had been hearing some weird grinding sound in the car for days and decided it was time to get it checked out before we continued on any further. Car appointment is set for 8am tomorrow. Fingers crossed!!! Goodnight!