Too many people!

Keith

Today started with us waking up at a pretty decent time considering we are on vacation. The intent today was to spend a good portion of the day exploring Yellowstone National Park. We checked out the breakfast at the camp we are staying and both decided that we didn’t want pancakes. This gave us the resolve to quickly pack up and head into West Yellowstone for a bite to eat. We stumbled on a bar/restaurant that was just filled with amazing taxidermy. The food was quite satisfying, Leah even mentioned that everywhere we have been they really know how to cook an egg properly.

After eating we headed just into the park gate. I had discussed with Leah the day before that today she was going to lead once we reached the other side of the park gate. It’s not a normal thing for Leah to lead as she is always happy to follow.

Today the plan was to complete the south loop of the park hitting areas like Old Faithful, Yellowstone Lake, and as many of the geological features as we can stomach.

The first area we hit kinda gave us the indication on what to expect from there on in. It probably took us a good 15-20 minutes just to park. It would have taken us a little longer if not for us quickly skirting the rules and driving down the wrong way in the parking lot to find a spot. We both admitted that the wait though was worth it! The first feature was a bubbling spring with water coming out at the boiling point. Due to the temperature of the water it allowed a bacteria to grow in the mineral rich waters which gave a unique reddish colour to the surrounding areas around the pools. The next feature was my personal favourite. They were called the paint pots, low levels of superheated water mixed with the surrounding mud and created a pure white bubbling cauldron of mud. Next was a series of geysers one just kept pulsing and the other would just blast off every 3 minutes or so for about 30 seconds. We noticed on our walk around the line of cars trying to get into this area was now about 1 mile long. I’m glad we came when we did.

The next area we hit was the Old Faithful geyser. This was kinda anti climatic, I really enjoyed the earlier geysers more than this one, maybe it had to do with the thousands of people in the area. Leah really wanted a coffee so we sent forth with finding her some. The coffee ended up being not overly great so we downed what we could and hit the road again.

The plan was to head toward Yellowstone Lake and have a bite to eat at Lake Village. Most of the ride we drove along the north edge of the lake and I have to say it was pretty spectacular. I have found that the signage in the National parks in the USA is kinda lacking if you compare it to what they do in Canada. We ended up missing our turn into Lake Village and both of decided that it be best to carry on.

The next stop was at the mud volcano, this was very similar to the paint pots but with a lot more water added to the mix. To all the folks that I work with, I’m sure if I was carrying a gas detector it would be going off constantly as the acrid smell of sulphur was everywhere. Me thinks it was levels of H2S.

Now heading north to the Canyon Village, we ran into what I would say is a traffic jam. This traffic jam was caused by bison and morons at the wheel that had to get that picture while five feet away. As we could see that there was no on coming traffic and the line looked like it went for a few miles. We decided to break the law yet again and skirt the lineup. While we zipped up the oncoming lane multiple other drivers issued their discuss with us by giving us a single finger salute, I’ll let you guess the finger they used. Finally reaching the front of the line we noticed that the parks staff was basically working as crossing guards for the bison to cross the highway.

This was basically enough for Leah and I and we decided to head back to West Yellowstone, but I asked for one more stop along the way.

Our last stop of the day was the artists pots, this turned out to be another mud pot area but you had a little walk to get to it. Some of the pools that you could tell were now inactive had a fantastic blue hue to the water but still had that touch of red from the bacteria living in the waters.

After our little walk we hopped back on the bikes heading home. Reaching West Yellowstone we fuelled up and asked one of the locals where the best place to go for a bite. One of the locals told us to go to Bullwinkles. We parked on the main drag and quickly found a table at the suggested restaurant. I ordered the pan seared walleye and Leah ordered the Elk ravioli, both were fantastic. We are now back at the KOA getting some laundry done so we can continue our journey.