The Ground is Alive!
Trip Start
Jun 24, 2010
1
64
66
Trip End
May 18, 2011
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Sometimes the weather is a blessing, other times it's a curse, and yet there are other times when you think you are missing out on something fantastic but you end up finding beauty by looking the other way. Such was the case at Teton National Park, as we had such high expectations of seeing the spectacular mountains that envelope the Jackson Hole WY area, but the weather gods had other ideas, "welcoming" us into the middle of a late spring snowstorm that hung around long and low, with the thick imposing clouds never rising much above ground level. So our hopes of seeing the majestic mountains were soon dashed, but our unruffled luck came in discovering the beauty of life around these parts at ground level. The wild critters who came down from the mountains to feed amongst the freshly snow-sprinkled valley grasslands, and our exploration of some original farms and barns left behind by the folks who foraged their way to this natural wonderland many years ago and homesteaded here, made for one fabulous day of discovery.
Our focus then turned northward from the Tetons, so we kept our fingers crossed that the forecast we kept hearing about was gonna come through and give us the kind of days that just knock your socks off………………and come through it did! We were treated to a GLORIOUS couple of days! The sun was shining, the sky was a deep sapphire blue, and we heard Yellowstone calling our name! What a perfect day to explore one of America’s premier national parks! It’s a slow but excitedly contented prowl through the park, as we found ourselves stopping pretty much every mile or so to snap photos of downright gorgeous scenery or gaze in awe at the amazing creatures that call this place home – elk resting comfortably in the warmth of the morning sun, moose munching non-stop on the endless wildflowers, trumpeter swans frolicking in the river, and bison grazing in the roadside grasslands (that is, when they’re not ambling down the middle of the road). And Benjamin and Lisha were so enamored with this place that they spent a good amount of time with a park ranger learning lots about the history and science of Yellowstone and then following up and completing all the assignments required to earn their Junior Ranger badges. Salute!
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Yellowstone, the world’s first national park when it was established way back in 1872, is an amazing natural cacophony of over 10,000 hot springs, steam vents, boiling mud pots, and the perennially-popular geysers, all in all the earth’s largest array of geothermal features set in the finest of “natural outdoor museums”. It’s such a cool, if somewhat surreal, sight though when you look across the landscape and see the ground “alive” with all the steam bubbling up out of all those holes in the caldera floor. Then when you get up close you can see the boiling water and mud in action as it gurgles and spits and shoots to the sky. And of course, you couple all that action with the fact that there are moose and elk and all kinds of critters all over the place pretty much wherever you look, and it makes for one picture-perfect setting! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!
