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Al and I are thrilled that you have found your way to our blog. We hope you enjoy reading our journal and viewing our photographs of the natural wonder of our United States of America. Let's hit the road together!
Homer, Alaska

Friday, July 4, 2014

Yellowstone National Park at last!

It is taking me quite awhile to get anything posted these days, sorry! We are quite busy here at the ranch, and we find we are pretty tired at the end of the day. It is actually pretty good training for working at Amazon in the fall :-). We are both losing weight, which is a good thing, and gaining strength in the old leg muscles, making the hiking seem easier. Now that we have our full complement of workers for the season, we are all on regular schedules and our routines are becoming familiar. It is a nice bunch of workers, and we are having a good time getting to know them all. So all is good.

On the truck front, we do finally have our beloved tow vehicle back! To answer some of the questions, yes we consulted legal advice, and after 7 days someone from Banks did contact us. Pretty much as expected, they flat out denied that their system could have caused the damage to our engine, BUT if any warranty issues came up we are on our own. They sent some paperwork to us, but after reading it, any recourse we might have had applied only to the original warranty on the truck, not the extended warranty after the original was done. Extended warranties are not considered "warranties", but "service contracts". It's all in the wording, isn't it? We also looked into arbitrage, but that is a long, involved process that would require us to go back to Florida for the sessions, and the majority of the appeals are denied after months have dragged on. So it was ready last Friday, and we spent our "weekend" off driving the 5 hours down to pick it up on Sunday, and then coming back to the ranch on Monday. We did decide to take a different route home, and that will be the next post (just a tease for you to keep reading!).

Anyway, the weekend before we finally had our "virgin visit" to the country's first National Park, Yellowstone, established in 1872. We had arranged to spend the day with John and Carol Herr again, and we had a totally enjoyable day. Being such a huge area to explore, we have decided to concentrate each visit there on a single area, and we chose the Old Faithful and Upper Geyser Basin area for our first visit. There is a walking trail starting from the visitor center that goes to Biscuit Basin and back that is about 5 miles long, and we figured we could do this, even as slow as we are :-)! There are dozens of geysers, pools, springs and other geothermal pools along this trail, and I'm afraid we underestimated how long it really would take us to do the trail, as we did not make the entire loop to Biscuit basin; we did, however, do over 6 miles, and spent 6 hours doing so!

This has to be the most interesting, surreal environment that I have had the privilege of seeing with my own eyes. The hydrothermal region of Upper Geyser Basin contains more than 20% of all the geysers in the world, as well as thousands of non-erupting hot springs. This concentration of hydrothermal features provides ample evidence of Yellowstone's volcanic geology. 3 major eruptions have occurred in the past two million years, and the volcano is still active. Molten rock, or magma, may be as close as 3-8 miles underground, and provides the first ingredient for the thermal features: heat. Rain and snow supply the second ingredient: water. The water seeps down several thousand feet below the surface where it is heated. Underground cracks provide the third ingredient: a natural plumbing system. Hot water rises through this plumbing to produce hot springs and geysers. But enough chitchat, onto some pictures!

Parking at the Visitor Center, as we began our hike up to the upper observation area, we were able to take a nice picture of the iconic Old Faithful Inn. We had written down the estimated eruption times of the geysers that are predictable, and figured we had just enough time to climb up to the upper level. It was a pretty good rise in elevation, but the hiking guide had said "the trail is in excellent shape with well-planned switchbacks, making the small climb seem easy". Well, that statement is kind of relative, what seems "easy" to folks from around here doesn't seem quite so "easy" to those of us from the flat lands :-). 

We did make it with a couple of minutes to spare, and saw Old Faithful's eruption for the very first time.

Other treats we saw up at the top of Geyser Hill Viewpoint was this beautiful Western Tananger...

a yellow-bellied marmot...

and her baby :-)!

We headed down the trail, following the signs, and ending up taking an unplanned detour from the main trail....

but it was ok as we ended up visiting Solitary Geyser, out by itself off the well-trodden path. 

Solitary Geyser very obligingly erupted for us while we were there; sometimes you do end up in the right place and the right time.

As we made our way back to the main trail, we passed such beautiful features. The ribbons of color in and around the thermal features are usually formed by thermophiles (heat-loving organisms). These organisms-algae, bacteria and archaea, are primitive life forms that have inhabited the earth for almost four billion years. 

Can you imagine the first explorers stumbling into this environment, and what they must have thought?

Spasmodic Geyser...erratic, splattering eruptions.

Ghostly white trees, near the hot springs

A great example of the thermophiles around a spring.


The whole area was completely fascinating. Carol and I were taking picture after picture, one reason it has taken me so long to get this post up :-).

One of the most loved features in the Upper Geyser Basin is known as Morning Glory Pool.

Another predictable geyser, Daisy Geyser. Daisy erupts to a height of 75 feet for 3-5 minutes. 

A gorgeous western bluebird was posing perfectly, showing off his hapless insect.

We walked further up the trail along Firehole River...

to the beautiful Gem Pool area.


I find it impossible to pick a favorite picture, so I know I'm including way too many!

At this point we turned around as we didn't want to miss the eruption of Riverside geyser. As we arrived, we could see the basin area starting to fill with water that spilled back into the river. We waited, and waited and waited, until it was at least 30 minutes past the predicted time span for eruption. It would look like it was getting ready to blow, but then didn't! We hated to leave, but a bank of very black, threatening looking clouds rolled in, and we could hear thunder. It was almost two miles back to the Visitor center, so we turned to go and of course, you know what happened!

It finally erupted! I snapped few quick pictures, and then we hot-footed it quickly down the trail. Luckily, we made it to shelter before the hard rain came, and I think it was the quickest two miles I've ever 
accomplished!

We were all starving at this point so what was going to be lunch at the cafeteria turned into an early dinner and it was pretty good. I was surprised :-). We spent a little time in the Visitor center....

Saw one more eruption of Old Faithful, and then piled into the car for the hour and a half drive back to Moran. One quick stop at Lewe's Falls...


and a view down the river of the Tetons. Still no bear sightings for me, though :-(. Our next excursion to Yellowstone will be in a couple of weeks, when we will be exploring the Canyon Area, with the beautiful Lower Falls and Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River. We do have a couple of things over the next couple weeks planned here in the Tetons as well, so stay tuned. 

15 comments:

  1. Beautiful pictures -- you can never have too many! It's great that you are spending the whole summer there, and have so much time to explore all the wonderful areas of both parks! Sorry to hear of the truck troubles, and lack of restitution, but at least you finally got it back!

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  2. Ditto what Tom and Marci said;o)) Yellowstone is spectacular as are your photos!!! Put the truck behind you and enjoy your summer in that beautiful area of the country:o)

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  3. Yellowstone is just a magical place. We need to get back there!

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  4. Beautiful pictures!! Glad you have your truck back. I was telling my husband about your truck problem. He worked as a service advisor/manager for over 30 years and said that in his experience extended warranty companies do everything in their power to deny as many claims as possible, so he was not surprised your claim was denied. Glad this is behind you and you can move ahead.

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  5. Welcome to our neck of the woods guys! We never tire of heading over to the park for the day! Glad you are enjoying your visit and that the jobs are working out. Bummer about your truck!!

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  6. We can't wait to get back to Yellowstone and to be able to take our time there. Our son spent a season working at Old Faithful Inn, he had some interesting stories to tell. Sorry to hear no one is going to make it right for your truck, on to a great summer in a beautiful place.

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  7. Great pictures! Definitely one of our most favorite places:)

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  8. Thanks for the pictures, they sure bring back some good memories. If you can, try to get to the Roosevelt Lodge for supper some night. The food was great back in the 80's!
    RK

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  9. Enjoyed reading your post and seeing the experience through your eyes. It was a great adventure and it was wonderful to spend the whole day checking it out. We were so happy to join you for the day.

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  10. Spectacular! I think exploring individual areas each time gives a much greater experience overall. I'll be using your posts as our travel guide when we get there :)

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  11. Such a great place. It is definitely on our list as a place to workamp some day. Great pictures!

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  12. So glad you enjoyed your visit to our backyard! And what makes Yellowstone even more special...it is also the WORLD'S first National Park. I hate we couldn't meet up with you...but sometimes we have to work. :) Enjoy the rest of your summer!

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  13. Every visit to Yellowstone is like the first! Words and pictures can't do it justice.... although yours are spectaluar. Everyone needs to see if firsthand! Glad to see you got the truck back.

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  14. Really fantastic pictures Karen!! Surreal is the perfect word for this place. I wondered the same thing about the first non native explorers to see it. Great post!

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  15. We were there in June. It was our second trip to the parks. We stayed at the Signal Mountain CG in Tetons. We encountered snow, sleet, and rain, but the experience was totally worth it.

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