Day 20 Yellowstone

Natural Wonders!!  Yellowstone National Park is AMAZING.!!  Not only is there beauty in the scenery, but the wildlife is such fun to watch for!  And the science lesson about geysers and volcanoes is a bonus!

When we first arrived in the Park, Max made the mistake of reading the Park newspaper which talks about all the dangers of the park:  wild Bison that trample you, thermal mud that melts your sneakers, acidic water that eats flesh, dangerously high levels of hydrogen sulfide, and bacteria in thermal water that can cause meningitis….  Nonetheless we convinced him it would be worth the trip – and it was!!

First we passed through the wild Bison herd… 

Then we saw what remains of the 2009 forest fire, when more than 10,000 acres was burned.…

Then we breathed in the warm (potentially fatal) steam from the hot springs.....  We took a walk along this basin full of paint pots and mud pots.  Yellowstone is 8000 feet above sea level.  Water (and mud) boils at a lower temperature -- just 199 degrees Fahrenheit (93 degrees Celsius).  At this altitude the mud and water bubbles most of the time.

But it was all worth it when we saw the Old Faithful Geyser erupt -- four times!!  We stayed in the Snow Lodge on the same site as Old Faithful, so every 90 minutes we went out and watched it erupt.  There is a brand new Education Centre which explains how water and steam are constricted inside the earth and builds pressure until the confined bubbles lift the water above its opening, creating a geyser.

We took an early morning stroll on the Geyser Walk and saw many fumaroles (steam vents) and geysers.  As we walked we saw three geysers erupt just as we passed.  This one is called the Lion Geyser because of the ROAR it makes just before it erupts.  We were startled by how much it did sound like a lion!