Yellowstone Day 2

Summer Vacation 2017, “Out West!”

We initially planned four days and nights in Yellowstone National Park.

Then friends at Church recommended we visit Jackson, WY, so we adjusted to two days in each location.

Even thought we “only” had two days, we drove almost all the roads in Yellowstone and saw A LOT. Sure, we could stay longer, and we want to visit again, but two days helped us make more lifetime memories than we expected.

Day 6: Yellowstone, through Grand Teton National Park, to Jackson, WY

(direction-wise, from nine o’clock, counterclockwise, to six o’clock)

1)A slow slow entry into the park at the West Entrance
2)Seeing the Grand Prismatic Spring, Excelsior Geyser, Opal Spring, and Turquoise Spring at the Mid-Geyser Basin
3)Seeing three geysers erupt:
⁃Grand Geyser first, a ways away, but tall enough to see over the treetops
⁃Old Faithful (erupts for 3-4 minutes every 90 minutes +/- 20 minutes)
⁃Lion Geyser (at the same time as Old Faithful, but for a shorter eruption)
4)Seeing a storm blow over Grand Teton National Park
5)Stopping the van, and with another car’s driver, moving a tree that was just felled by the blowing wind, clearing the road for traffic
6)Arriving in Jackson, WY and enjoying

image source

Photos:

The Holiday Inn in West Yellowstone, MT, has at least one family suite with beds enough for all (no sofa beds) and two bedrooms)... and a great breakfast.

The Holiday Inn also has this painted cow outside the lobby entrance.

An image from the State of Wyoming Museum, for background on this awesome national park. What makes Yellowstone so special? It’s one of the world’s two super-volcanoes! Magma heats water, water makes springs, springs make microorganisms grow and they make awesome colors; water also makes geysers... guaranteed to impress.

The Madison River

Bison!

Another awesome “Abby Tilt” from this trip... she tilted the camera intentionally, to make for a special image!

The Midway Geyser Basin is home to:

-The deep blue Excelsior Geyser
-the multi-colored Grand Prismatic Spring
-the Opal Pool
-the Turquoise Pool

The water is hot.

The smell is of sulfur, but the beauty overcomes the smell.

The wind is strong... quote a few hats were in the water, unreachable.

The Excelsior Geyser is a beautiful shade of blue.

The Grand Prismatic Spring is Ann Marie’s favorite thing in Yellowstone... we all loved it.

Abby captured these panoramas.

The Opal Pool

The Turquoise Pool

And on the drier part of the hillside, life...

Excelsior Geyser pumps 4,000 gallons per minute into the Firehole River.

We also captured some videos of hte steam blowing in the wind. You can see the videos on this page:

http://vanvooren.us/OutWest/Yellowstone_Grand_Prismatic_Spring_Video.html

One of many sources of interesting information about Yellowstone’s geysers:

http://yellowstone.net/geysers/geyser-list/

One of many sources of information about Old Faithful

https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/about-old-faithful

We arrived at lunch time... if we weren’t hungry, we likely could have walked out just in time for an earlier eruption of Old Faithful. But we needed food, and that was an awesome blessing... because we were able to see three geysers erupt:

1)Castle erupted to the far left, behind the trees, but also above the trees, 10-15 minutes before Old Faithful erupted
2)Old Faithful erupts every 90 minutes +/- 10 minutes... and the eruptions usually last 3-4 minutes
3)Lion erupted at the end of Old Faithful - both erupted simultaneously for a few minutes...AWESOME!