Thursday, October 18, 2007

YellowStone National Park
















After making some adjustments to our travel schedule because of skipping Glacier National Park we made it to Yellowstone.

Man, was it hot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We are talking about end of July, beginning of August. It was over 100 degrees everyday we were there. Tour guides kept trying to comfort us by saying, it had never been that hot before. Not much consolation since that is the same thing they said in Palo Alto, Vancouver, Banff, and now here.

After hearing about Yellowstone since I was little, I guess I was expecting too much. I am not much an outdoors kind of guy. But the collection of never before seen natural oddities made it a worthwhile trip. The hot springs were something else. Old Faithful and the other geysers were nice. But after the dancing fountains of the Bellagio, it wasn't as entertaining. Everyone sits around the geyser, and it starts to erupt. Kind of like a small volcano of water. After 2-3 minutes it stops. And then it repeats about every 45 minutes or so. You can watch it maybe once or twice and then you find it loses its charm.

The amazing part to me was the hundreds of buffalo or bison as they are properly called, roaming around the park. We drove all around the main roads of the park two or three times. One time at night, on the way back to our lodge, we got stuck in a bison jam. Hundreds of buffalo were crossing the only road. They were literally three feet away from our car. I wanted to take a picture, but opening the windows or sunroof meant exposing yourself to the huge mosquitoes and other swarming bugs.


On our way out of the park, we happened to get lucky and see a couple cars on the side of the road. We stopped to see what it was and there in plain site were a couple of brown bears: a mama and her cub. Soon there were dozens of cars and about a hundred people gawking and taking pictures. Luckily the park rangers were there to keep order. Those guys and gals do a great job!

The route we took to leave the park was the NorthEast exit. This road is only for the brave of heart and firm hands on the wheel. DO NOT take this road with any snow or rain. We actually climbed up and down the sides of mountains with no guard rails, barely enough room for one car much less two, (it was a two way road), and more twists and turns then in California.
The park is so huge that it even has its own canyon. It's called The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. Not as big as the real Grand Canyon but it was still very impressive.

Yellowstone is a great place to take the kids. There is so much to learn, see and do that they will remember it for the rest of their lives. But if you can come in any season besides summer, do it. The park is open everyday of the year and gets covered with snow in winter. That is when visitors get full access to the entire park by snow mobile.
Here you see some of the sulphur pits that the park is famous for.

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