July 11, 2007
I am typing this in the car as we travel east on I-70 through central Utah. It is extremely desolate here and I am beyond tired.
When I left off last time, we were in Cody Wyoming and as I mentioned in the last post, we were going into Yellowstone and camping two days in the park (as such, we had no cell phone service and definitely no wifi.) Yellowstone was incredible, and I was surprised that the kids were so completely fascinated by the place. The day we arrived, the first thing we did was go to see Old Faithful. The kids weren’t too keen on waiting around for the thing to blow, but once it
went off they were pretty much speechless. It was amazing. The one thing that virtually everyone complained about in the geyser basin, however, was the incredibly awful sulfur smell. It was overpowering. And little did we realize at the time, but it was going to get worse. So we spent that whole first day just cruising around the Old Faithful area and seeing the other geysers and hot springs in the immediate area. We had the good fortune to see Castle Geyser go off, it spewed water for something near 30-45 minutes. It was amazing. We were across the basin from it , so unlike Old Faithful we were not right near it when it went off, but we had a great view of it nonetheless.
The next day we travelled along Yellowstone Lake and Yellowstone River. We stopped to see some boiling mud pots and there was one called Dragon’s Mouth that literally reeked to the high heavens with sulfur. Joseph started to gag and Marianne announced to the whole world that this smelled so bad that it really wasn’t worth seeing. As we walked along the path to leave the boiling mud pots a bison was walking calmly through the parking lot and in between the cars. It got so close that I started backing u
p back toward the mud pots and he started heading in our direction, then he changed his mind and started back towards the parking lot; that was our opportunity to dash to our car. We have some incredible pictures of this guy up close. Next we passed through the Hayden Valley where I saw the largest number of Buffalo I have ever seen in my life; there had to be 75-100 mothers and babies in that valley. Some of them were right up next to the road so we got to see a baby buffalo right up close. Next we stopped to see the upper and lower falls of the Yellowstone River. The lower falls were breathtaking. They pour into a thing called the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. The walls of the canyon are filled with geothermal areas. So, right there in the walls there are geysers and hot springs. In the parking lot of one area near the river, a geyser sprang up right in the parking lot and they had to build a fence around it. So there you are in the parking lot parked next to a big sinkhole with 
boiling water in it.
We continued on and we saw a whole mess of people stopped on the side of the road. In Yellowstone traffic tie-ups are almost always caused by animal sightings; but the biggest traffic stoppers of them all are Grizzly Bears. As I mentioned in a previous post, in the old days (about 20 years ago) you would never see a Grizzly near the road. But in fact there were sightings the prior day of a mother and her 3 cubs, so everyone came back at dusk to see if she was out again. She was not there, so we continued on up to Tower falls and on the way we saw a black bear foraging around in the woods. There was a ranger right in front of him on the road to make sure no one harassed the bear. (Yes, people do harass the animals. Usually they are just trying to get a picture, but they start shouting at the animal to get them to turn toward the camera, and sometimes they do more than turn, they can and do charge sometimes and if that happens you are in bad situation.) So after arriving at Tower Falls, it was getting late in the day and we decided to go back toward where we saw the black bear to see if we could get a better look at him, but he was gone. However, as we approached the area where the Grizzlys had been the previous day, we got extremely lucky as a mother Grizzly and two cubs happened to be playing in the meadow. It was incredible. They were at a safe distance so the ranger wasn’t chasing people off. But there were two rangers trying to maintain order. There was a massive traffic tie up and virtually everyone was out of their cars with cameras and binoculars. It really was neat, and just as we got a really good look at her the ranger walked up to us and said that the mother with the three cubs—a different Grizzly family—was spotted up on the hill in front of us. We did not have the opportunity to see this other bear, but having seen the first one with her cubs was really a highlight of the entire trip.
I have had a good bit of time to contemplate this mother bear since the day I saw her. I am very clear on why I admire these animals so much. They spend all summer getting as fat as ursusly possible; so that they can sleep snuggled up next to their cubs for the entire winter! What could be better than that? I would love to spend my summer eating barbeque food and ice cream and then settle down come late September with my little kiddies and sleep until May.
After checking out of the campground in Yellowstone, we decided to return to Teton National Park and take our new canoe out. (Canoeing is not really safe in Yellowstone because the water temperature in all of the bodies of water is so cold; Yellowstone lake never goes above about 50 degrees.) We returned to String Lake and all of the kids got a chance to ride in the canoe, and go swimming. Meagan, Michael and Joseph finished the activities for their junior ranger badges, so we stopped in the visitor center for them to take their oath and get their badges. After that we got on the road and drove all the way to Provo Utah. Last night for the first time on this trip, we stayed in a hotel. The hot showers were awesome. So now we are on our way to Moab (which is where I will be when I finally have an opportunity to publish this post—we should have wifi there.)
Later today we are planning to check out Arches NP (as I type we are about 30 miles out) and Canyonlands tomorrow. I will post again and let you know how all of this goes. After that we are going to make a beeline for home.
I am typing this in the car as we travel east on I-70 through central Utah. It is extremely desolate here and I am beyond tired.
When I left off last time, we were in Cody Wyoming and as I mentioned in the last post, we were going into Yellowstone and camping two days in the park (as such, we had no cell phone service and definitely no wifi.) Yellowstone was incredible, and I was surprised that the kids were so completely fascinated by the place. The day we arrived, the first thing we did was go to see Old Faithful. The kids weren’t too keen on waiting around for the thing to blow, but once it
went off they were pretty much speechless. It was amazing. The one thing that virtually everyone complained about in the geyser basin, however, was the incredibly awful sulfur smell. It was overpowering. And little did we realize at the time, but it was going to get worse. So we spent that whole first day just cruising around the Old Faithful area and seeing the other geysers and hot springs in the immediate area. We had the good fortune to see Castle Geyser go off, it spewed water for something near 30-45 minutes. It was amazing. We were across the basin from it , so unlike Old Faithful we were not right near it when it went off, but we had a great view of it nonetheless.The next day we travelled along Yellowstone Lake and Yellowstone River. We stopped to see some boiling mud pots and there was one called Dragon’s Mouth that literally reeked to the high heavens with sulfur. Joseph started to gag and Marianne announced to the whole world that this smelled so bad that it really wasn’t worth seeing. As we walked along the path to leave the boiling mud pots a bison was walking calmly through the parking lot and in between the cars. It got so close that I started backing u
p back toward the mud pots and he started heading in our direction, then he changed his mind and started back towards the parking lot; that was our opportunity to dash to our car. We have some incredible pictures of this guy up close. Next we passed through the Hayden Valley where I saw the largest number of Buffalo I have ever seen in my life; there had to be 75-100 mothers and babies in that valley. Some of them were right up next to the road so we got to see a baby buffalo right up close. Next we stopped to see the upper and lower falls of the Yellowstone River. The lower falls were breathtaking. They pour into a thing called the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. The walls of the canyon are filled with geothermal areas. So, right there in the walls there are geysers and hot springs. In the parking lot of one area near the river, a geyser sprang up right in the parking lot and they had to build a fence around it. So there you are in the parking lot parked next to a big sinkhole with 
boiling water in it.We continued on and we saw a whole mess of people stopped on the side of the road. In Yellowstone traffic tie-ups are almost always caused by animal sightings; but the biggest traffic stoppers of them all are Grizzly Bears. As I mentioned in a previous post, in the old days (about 20 years ago) you would never see a Grizzly near the road. But in fact there were sightings the prior day of a mother and her 3 cubs, so everyone came back at dusk to see if she was out again. She was not there, so we continued on up to Tower falls and on the way we saw a black bear foraging around in the woods. There was a ranger right in front of him on the road to make sure no one harassed the bear. (Yes, people do harass the animals. Usually they are just trying to get a picture, but they start shouting at the animal to get them to turn toward the camera, and sometimes they do more than turn, they can and do charge sometimes and if that happens you are in bad situation.) So after arriving at Tower Falls, it was getting late in the day and we decided to go back toward where we saw the black bear to see if we could get a better look at him, but he was gone. However, as we approached the area where the Grizzlys had been the previous day, we got extremely lucky as a mother Grizzly and two cubs happened to be playing in the meadow. It was incredible. They were at a safe distance so the ranger wasn’t chasing people off. But there were two rangers trying to maintain order. There was a massive traffic tie up and virtually everyone was out of their cars with cameras and binoculars. It really was neat, and just as we got a really good look at her the ranger walked up to us and said that the mother with the three cubs—a different Grizzly family—was spotted up on the hill in front of us. We did not have the opportunity to see this other bear, but having seen the first one with her cubs was really a highlight of the entire trip.
I have had a good bit of time to contemplate this mother bear since the day I saw her. I am very clear on why I admire these animals so much. They spend all summer getting as fat as ursusly possible; so that they can sleep snuggled up next to their cubs for the entire winter! What could be better than that? I would love to spend my summer eating barbeque food and ice cream and then settle down come late September with my little kiddies and sleep until May.
After checking out of the campground in Yellowstone, we decided to return to Teton National Park and take our new canoe out. (Canoeing is not really safe in Yellowstone because the water temperature in all of the bodies of water is so cold; Yellowstone lake never goes above about 50 degrees.) We returned to String Lake and all of the kids got a chance to ride in the canoe, and go swimming. Meagan, Michael and Joseph finished the activities for their junior ranger badges, so we stopped in the visitor center for them to take their oath and get their badges. After that we got on the road and drove all the way to Provo Utah. Last night for the first time on this trip, we stayed in a hotel. The hot showers were awesome. So now we are on our way to Moab (which is where I will be when I finally have an opportunity to publish this post—we should have wifi there.)
Later today we are planning to check out Arches NP (as I type we are about 30 miles out) and Canyonlands tomorrow. I will post again and let you know how all of this goes. After that we are going to make a beeline for home.
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