Tuesday, June 13^th, 2017

 

OMG!!!  SNOW!!!

 

 

Though beautiful (I thought), we were a little bummed out by the cold, getting reports of how HOT it was back home!  Oh well, we were not deterred.  Bundled and layered, we met our guide, Gibb, at the appointed time.  Fortunately, this was to be a driven tour of the park.  Glacier being 1 million acres, imagine our surprise to learn that Yellowstone is 2.2 million acres and spans 3 states!!  The majority of the park lies in Wyoming, with smaller slices in Idaho and Montana.

The main thoroughfare of the park lies in a figure 8, (upper and lower loops) with most of the popular sights on this route.  Our guide today would take us on the lower loop, giving us an overview of the park, stopping at places of interest and even taking us on some smaller back roads where our RV won’t be able to traverse.  Basically, the park is situated on top of a volcano!!!!  Who would’ve thought! 

 

When you hear “Yellowstone” one immediately thinks of geysers.  How did they form?  What are they?  Well, as explained by Gibb, huge volcano eruptions occurred 640,000 years ago.  The debris spewed by the eruption settled and eventually collapsed which is now the central part of the park.  This collapsed area formed a 30 – 45-mile basin (caldera).  The magmatic heat powering those

eruptions still powers the park’s geysers, hot springs, fumeroles (steam vents) and mud pots ( theses suggest the appearance of the ancient earth), while hot springs appear in seemingly endless shapes and colors.  It got to be quite the geology lesson and after awhile, I  kind of tuned out and enjoyed the view!!

Also present in Yellowstone is a “Grand Canyon”.  The Yellowstone river carved a canyon in a relatively lesser amount of time than the Colorado’s carving of the Grand Canyon as we know it in Arizona.  Here, one can see the forces of the river:  its waterfalls highlight the boundaries of lava flows ad thermal areas.  Rugged mountains flank the park’s volcanic plateau, rewarding eye and spirit.

Periodically along the way, there would be a “wildlife traffic jam”. 

This is a “sighting”, then cars stop, people emerge from their cars, and line the road with cameras at the ready.  I can’t imagine what visiting the park in summer would be like.  With more people, these stops could take up to an hour! 

We did see a bear in a tree!

As we approached, it was easy to tell where it was… we watched for swaying branches and shaking snow!!  It didn’t have the familiar shoulder hump, so we knew it was a black bear and not a Grizzly.  Gibb told us it was actually a Cinnamon Bear.  It was stripping the leaves and licking the bark!!  Very unusual, and Gibb reported this behavior to a Ranger at a later stop!!  Supposedly we were lucky to see this!

We also spotted a lone elk on her haunches staring back at us!! Bison, in abundance became just an everyday occurrence for us. 

 

The highlight of the loop was visiting Old Faithful. Ole Faithful Geyser, the most famous of the geysers, erupts in a towering column of steam and hot water. 

It is one of more than 300 geysers in the park, the largest concentration of these rare natural wonders on the planet.  Gibb took us to the Old Faithful Inn and told us of an optimum viewing vantage point – upstairs on the second floor balcony.  He called ahead to find out when the next eruption would be so we were quite fortunate that we didn’t have to wait for any length of time.  It was pretty spectacular! 

The Inn itself was rustic and bustling.  We are hoping to come back here for lunch on Thursday.

 

 

We continued along the loop to the Lake House – a hotel on the east side of the loop, where we stopped for our lunch.  There actually was a Star Bucks concession!  We were able to get a chai latte – oh so happy on this snowy, cold day!!

By the time we finished lunch, the snow had ended and it remained damp and cold.  The sun attempted to peek out but to no avail.

One of our last stops was at the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.  The overlook was called “Lookout Point”!  How cute is that! 

We made it back to the RV and needed to warm our bones.  We decided to walk into town for dinner, we ate at Madison Corner.  The building was originally the schoolhouse, built in 1954 and we ate in the first grade classroom!

 

We tried to stay up for the stars of the Big Sky, but failed!!  We figured it was too cloudy anyhow!