Yellowstone National Park - Ground of Extraordinary Colors

I didn't truly appreciate what Yellowstone means until the second day of walking around looking at bubbling, steaming, venting holes in the ground.  The sheer number of geothermal features, the radical rainbow of colors flowing from the ground, the hundred different ways the light would play off of the steam rising from the ground everywhere at morning, noon, and nightfall - all of these things left me OK with the fact that my wife and son were so bearanoid that we didn't take a hike off of an established boardwalk after my jaunt down the South Canyon Trail.

First, the obligatory photo of Old Faithful.

The boardwalk around and behind Old Faithful weaves for about a mile and a half through numerous hydrothermal areas - bubbling pools, colorful pools, spouting geysers, and steaming vents - until it reaches the Morning Glory Pool.  From there, you can venture farther into the park, or take a paved trail back to the Visitor Center.  The sights, sounds, and smells are unique!

Once I ordered a meal "Thai hot" after drinking too much tequila, and my bottom felt like this the next day.

Notice the water levels in these two pools next to each other are significantly different.  Our son completed the "Yellowstone Young Scientist" program, an exercise that took about five hours and involved measuring the temperature in various pools, examining the color of the algae and bacteria that lived in the pools and how this related to the temperature, identifying rocks, learning about the park's geology, and a bit of conservation.  It was a great program, but not the easiest thing for a 9 year old to complete in a single visit.

A unique geologic feature, the monster from Day of the Triffids, or something more adult in nature?  Your first thoughts regarding the next picture may tell you quite a bit about yourself.

That night, temperatures dropped into the 20s, and we enjoyed snow showers, a layer of ice on the tent, and a dead battery the next morning due to aggressive charging of laptops and cameras.  Fortunately, we carry a portable Black & Decker battery/air compressor, so we fired the truck right up the next morning and were on our way on the "game drive" in the rain.  It's time to replace that battery!

The Marmot Halo 6 performed flawlessly in the rain, sleet, snow flurries, and ice.  Without any seam-sealing, straight from the factory it was completely waterproof.  100 square feet of car camping comfort with six feet of headroom - by the time we reached Norris Campground in Yellowstone, I had started hanging decorative mobiles from the loops in the ceiling inside to fill up the empty space.

With a rainy start to the day, we timed the "game drive" perfectly.  It was an ideal day to spend cruising around empty roads in the early morning light, popping in and out of the heated truck, peering out overlooks for an elk, bear, or bison.  We weren't disappointed.  Even better, we realized the next day that on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, the crowds descended again and the roads were jam-packed, so we were quite lucky.

After a few hours, bison in Yellowstone became kind of like elephants in Kenya - a non-event and something you carefully drove around to avoid receiving a kick to the quarter panel or worse.

We also popped into the town of Mammoth Hot Springs, where the elk ignore the "Don't Walk on the Grass" signs.

It turned out to be a great way to spend a rainy day in Yellowstone!