Old Faithful, and More!

15 Jul 2010--Went to Yellowstone again on Tuesday, to meet Carol and John for lunch before they left to got to Utah on Wednesday. It's amazing that they are, and have been, going to a lot of the places Cathy and I have on our itinerary. Because they have to get back to San Antonio in August, we won't see them again till we get back in November. We will miss them; we have been having a blast with them!

Entering the park we saw this young male with the antlers, along with the baby elk and others off the side of the road. The male still has velvet on his antlers, so they are very tender.



We were meeting Carol and John at the Old Faithful Visitor Center, to have lunch, and then to see the last part of the park that we hadn't been to yet. This is the Old Faithful Inn with all the people gathered outside. If you saw the National Geographic special on our country's national parks, you will recognize it. The pictures below are of the inside of the Inn. If you blow up the 2nd one you can see what looks kind of like a tree house up at the top.




The most visited part of the park is Old Faithful, with thousands of people seeing it go off approximately every 90 minutes. It was a really breezy day, actually ended up pretty cold. Cathy and I forgot our sweatshirts, but Carol had extra jackets in her car that she offered to us. I was glad I accepted...Cathy lived to regret, later in the day, that she declined! haha

This explains the types of geysers in the park.

Here is Old Faithful, a cone geyser, trying to get started.

And here it is picking up steam.

And "There she blows"!

I don't know how many active geysers there are, but there are a lot. Some of them go off every few hours, some every few years or decades. They said this one, Beehive Geyser, usually only went off twice a day, usually every 6-12 hours, but we saw it go off twice in between when we were waiting for Old Faithful.

As hot as these geysers and hot springs are, you wouldn't think anything could live in them. But not only is there life here, we were told when we were in Mesa Verde National Park that if you are ever stranded and need water, look for water that has stuff growing in it. That way you know that the water is viable...it has oxygen, etc...so it is drinkable. If nothing is growing, stay away! Here are some examples of "good water"...haha

One of the most amazing things about Yellowstone is just how many hot springs, geysers, and mud pots there are. It seems growing up all we heard about was Old Faithful, but that is not even the most amazing part of the park. This is hard to read, but essentially it says that hot springs are the most numerous of thermal feature here, with more than 10,000 in the park of over 2 million acres.

Crested Pool

Doublet Pool

Here are a few more geysers and hot springs.

Clepsydra

Midway Geyser Basin is one of the prettiest areas of geysers and springs here. The water from the geysers falling into the Yellowstone River, and all the colors on the sides of the hills, make for a very pretty setting.

This is Excelsior Geyser within the Midway, the prettiest one here. It came to life again in 1985.

I told you earlier that Cathy regretted not taking the jacket from Carol...check out the video of her standing by the geysers here at Midway, or should I say 'trying' to stand.

This is called Scalloped Spring.

And here, to me, is the most amazing part of the park...the paint pots, or mud pots. Depending on the weather, these may be watery or muddy, but when they are muddy they are amazing!!! The ones in the video are more muddy than watery, but I have seen them even more muddy than this, and you can actually here them plopping when they are at their best.

Yellowstone is really amazing, and my blog can do it no justice. If you are reading this and ever want to take a trip, this is the place you should see before all your sightseeing in life is done!