Yellowstone National Park

In my last post, I mentioned one other side trip I took in Wyoming. Some friends invited me to join them for a day trip to Yellowstone. It was going to be a beautiful day and a great opportunity to visit a national park that I had not really gotten to explore before, so I decided to go with them. We packed up our cars, said our goodbyes at Bitterroot, and drove to Yellowstone. An added bonus was that we had to pass through Grand Teton National Park to get to Yellowstone, so I got to enjoy some of it, too. Here are some photos from our day trip:

Our first stop was this natural hot spring. There was steam coming off of it, and it smelled like rotten eggs. Yuck! It was so hot it was bubbling--like boiling water--so we couldn't touch it.

The next stop was Old Faithful, the famous geyser. We arrived at 12:30, which was just in time for the 1:09pm forecasted eruption. We joined the huge crowd of people, got a  good seat, watched, and waited... 

We watched steam like this for a long time. 

Then it teased us with more steam and a few spurts of water. 

Then more water started to appear...

...and it shot up high into the air! 

This was the highest the water got. 

After a few minutes, it started to decrease little by little until it got back to
the way it was in my first picture. 

After Old Faithful, we were off to explore the rest of the park. We saw some beautiful scenery. I love the mountains!

We also wanted to stop and see the paint pots. These were something I have wanted to see for several years after reading about them in a chapter book I read aloud to my fifth grade class. They were really cool! It was hard to believe that they are all natural. The colors were amazing. Some looked like cement, while others looked like some very strange chemistry experiments! I took many photos, but I'll only post a few here. 

Looking down on one of the paint pot viewing areas. 

Not really bacteria, but it sure looks like it!  

This is a video of one of the mud pots...

Here is some interesting information about the paint pots and how they form.

This is a video of a small geyser that was near some of the paint pots...

We didn't see much wildlife at Yellowstone, but on the way out of the park, we did have a VERY close encounter with an American bison! 

It was a really great day at Yellowstone. The park is HUGE, so we only saw a very small part of it. It was a day of lovely scenery, great memories, laughter, and fun times with new friends. We drove to Teton Village, which is close to Jackson Hole. We stayed there at a hotel and had a nice dinner outdoors on the patio. I was glad that I made the decision to take this side trip!