Yellowstone

Yesterday evening we drove through the Rocky Mountains for the first time. It was quite a surprise seeing them for the first time—we’re driving on these grassy knolls and then, just as we came over a hill, there was the faint, light blue outline of the mountains against the sky. It really did look like a painting. Nothing about the mountains were defined, just a blue trace of the peaks across the entire horizon.

The car did well for its age. The Rockies were absolutely gorgeous to drive through, with massive cliffs which dove into steep valleys. The road was like something out of a picture—twisting right into mountain crevices. At one point we stopped and looked into a valley that had a creek at the bottom, where supposedly there was a memorial for a man who had fallen to his death while hunting sheep. We never could find that memorial across the panorama of the cliffs.

I guess it’s worth mentioning the trouble we got into last night. It was the first real could-be glitch of the trip. We had booked a Pohaska cabin to stay in, but when our GPS got us to the “location” of the cabins, we couldn’t find it. We asked around, and it turned out that we were still an hour away. Note: don’t put “Yellowstone Avenue” in the GPS when you are looking for “Yellowstone Highway.” We left the town we were in, Cody, set out for the cabins, and didn’t realize our gas was almost empty until half way there. Then my aunts realized that in many cases, if one doesn’t check into a cabin early, then one cannot check in at all. Then the drama started. We tried calling the cabin, but all of the lines went to voicemail. Aunt Trish then read the fine print that said “If you do not check in by 7:00, we will give away your cabin.” It was 10:30. We tried calling for back up hotels, but all three of us either had no signal, or had a dead phone. We also knew that we wouldn’t be able to make it back to Cody with this little gas. We were also driving through the Rockies. It was one big hectic situation. Everything had the potential to go wrong. However, thanks to what Aunt Amy calls “Aunt Tricia’s unfailing luck,” we got to the cabins, there was a gas station there, they had not given away our cabin, and there was someone there to check us in. Thank God. The cool thing, for me, about this whole ordeal was that, since we were driving through the Rockies and it was completely dark, I could look out of the window and all I saw were the mountains, moonlit, with stars above them. How can I even say how pretty that is?

This morning we went to Yellowstone National Park, which we all expected to be the pinnacle of the trip. I’ll break it down simply: Yellowstone is more of a park to visit if you are interested in natural occurrences, science, or hiking/camping. Because of a fire back in ’88, a ton of the trees are dead all over the park. I mean ugly dead. In that sense, the park was not very pretty. However, if there is a view far into the distance of a lake with mountains in the background, or a huge waterfall, it is gorgeous. These are two of the prettiest shots of the day:

I took maybe my favorite shot of the day when we approached a huge line of cars pulled over and I was the only one of the three of us who decided to get out and see what it was. As I passed one little girl, she looked up at me and said, with incredible awe: “It’s a bear!” I walked over to the crowd and expected to see this bear in the woods, right, but I literally gasped when I saw that the bear cub was less than 10 feet away from me. It was happily munching on a tree, not threatening any of its admirers, so I was able to steal this shot:

I love it!

Other than that, Yellowstone isn’t much to look at. It is full, and I mean FULL, of steaming geysers that send what looks like smoke into the air at all times. We saw quite a few of these bubbling pools today, and while some had a rainbow cascade in them, others were just green or gray mud boiling. It is very interesting, however, to watch this pool of water boiling naturally on a very chilly day. Of course, we went to see Old Faithful, and luckily, we only had to wait about 20 minutes for it to erupt. That was pretty awesome to watch. It was like one huge firehose shot into the sky. I don’t know how else to explain it. I really think it is something one has to enjoy in person.

I’m trying to keep this post shorter than the rest, because the other ones have just been silly. Tomorrow we drive to Canada!