Road Trip Diaries

We meant to get up early this morning, but failed, and left the hotel at 10:45. First stop was the Subway sandwich shop in the Walmart nearby. We bought bagels for breakfast and sandwiches to pack up for lunch.

The drive from Cody to Yellowstone’s East gate was very attractive in itself, and we wondered how Yellowstone could improve on it.

Our day in Yellowstone was busy and tiring.

We stopped at the first set of hydrothermal features — the mud volcano and its neighbours. Debbie was unimpressed by the stench of sulphur.

We ate our tasty subs on a picnic site on the south rim of the Yellowstone Canyon. We set off for a trail recommended by Road Trip USA — "Uncle Tom’s Trail". However, when we encountered the sign saying it was "extremely strenuous and steep", especially at our altitude of 8,000 feet, Debbie sensibly vetoed that plan. Instead we followed the South Rim Trail to Artists’ Point. This gave us lots of spectacular views of the lower falls, and the yellow canyon walls which give the park its name.

The twists and turns, ups and downs of the route made it much more strenuous than the map had suggested, and for an easier ride, we walked back along the flatter, straighter road.

This tired us, but there was still stuff to do. We drove on to Old Faithful, and found out when it was next predicted to erupt. We had over an hour to kill. We had a bit of a think, and did a bit of fact finding, then decided to walk around "Geyser Hill". There are dozens of geysers in the area, some of which erupt quietly and frequently, others of which seldom erupt.

It’s dangerous to walk off the path in these areas; sometimes the crust of earth above the boiling hot water is thin, and sometimes the water is acidic enough to melt through boots.

We got back to Old Faithful in time for its performance, slightly earlier than forecast.

We felt that it was very impressive, but the Bellagio fountains in Las Vegas are more punctual, there are more of them, and they are set to music. Yellowstone Park Authority could well spend our entrance fees on some improvements in that area. We would also suggest some sort of skyride between major attractions, like in Alton Towers; and maybe move Old Faithful closer to the Canyon.

We were tired, but we managed to fit one more stop on the way to the West exit — the Midway Geyser Basin. This includes the Excelsior Geyser Crater, which used to be an enormous geyser until the 1880s, but is now just a very large hot spring, in a crater to give us an impression of how it used to be. It also includes the Grand Prismatic Spring — lots of hot water and steam, lots of sulphur smells, and lots of colours caused by bacterial growth. I didn’t see the colours seen in some photographs I’ve seen, but there were some interesting reds and greens, and interesting patterns. While we weren’t allowed off the wooden walkways, hoofprints showed that buffalo had been paddling in the springs.

Wildlife seen included hundreds of buffalo — one of which brushed up against the car while lumbering noncholantly along the middle of the road, and some deer.

We left the park by its West exit. The town of West Yellowstone starts a few metres from the National Park boundary, and has dozens of hotels, which is good because we were exhausted. We checked into the Kelly Inn, bought some beer from a gas station and some burgers from McDonalds drive through, and collapsed in the room.

I had a Big ‘n’ Tasty burger, but I can’t tell you what it was like — I just ate it without thinking.

While I typed this, Debbie watched "Numb3rs", a series where a mathematician solves crimes. Now "What Not to Wear" is on. American fashion is odd.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 29th, 2005 at 1:00 pm and is filed under Oregon Trail. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.