Geysers, Hot Springs, Mud Pots, and Stupid Tourists

After a not-super night’s sleep, we got up a little late this morning, wandered to the lodge for breakfast (I had a shake, believe it or not…this diet is killin’ me), and hit the road to see more stuff.  First stop: Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.  But first, stop in a pullout and hop out of the truck to snap some bison.  And then onward…pictures of the falls, etc, then as we were exiting the upper falls parking lot to go to the Norris Geyser Basin, a delay.  A herd of bison crossing the road.  RIGHT in front of us.  Roll down the window, snappity-snap.  Baby bison are cute (and the size of a freaking pony).  And leet me tell you: they are acutely aware of the fact that nobody will hurt them.  Then amble.  They meander.  They stop to look at the tourists.  They move a few feet.  They smile for the cameras.  They are awesome!

But the BEST part of the day was going from basin to basin getting shots of geysers, mud pots, and those eerily-colored hot springs that I have only ever seen before in photography books.  My lord, the range of color is tremendous.  Porcelain blue, deep turquoise, crazy orange, intense greenish-yellow.  I think I took a hundred pictures of them.  And during one walk along a boardwalk rimmed by springs and signs warning people that they are HOT (Hello??!!  If it’s water and it’s boiling, it’s 212 degrees, you moron!), a tourist jumped off the boardwalk and went to put his hand in the spring.  Now, I never feel more American than when some crazy tourist decides to ignore every rule and defile MY country’s land.  As I was drawing breath to tell him to stop, six people in front of me, every one of them at least 6 feet tall, started yelling at him in Australian accents: “DO NOT TOUCH THAT!!!”  He looked at them, shook his head, and went back to his unlawful ways, at which point they all converged on that spot in the boardwalk.  Now, he was looking a bit guilty.  The woman he was with, who up to this point was pointing a camera at him and yammering at him in their native tongue and waving her hand as if saying, “No, a little to the left…no, get more in front of that geyser in the distance..” suddenly arose and, acting as though she’d never seen him before in her life, walked on without him.  Finding my voice, I looked at him, his beseeching gaze landing on me as if to say, “Holy shit; save me from the Aussie Amazons!” and I said, “You CANNOT be in there.  Come out of there.  Come out of there NOW!  GET OUT!”  Seeing he had no champion, he sheepishly climbed back onto the boardwalk.  When I saw him next, he was trying to take a picture of the woman who had rebuffed him earlier, and she was clearly not happy with his skills.  Maybe he just wanted to throw himself into the fiery cauldron; who knows.  But I do know that I LOVE my neighbors down under!!

More driving, more sightseeing, dinner at the Old Faithful Lodge (no, we didn't wait for it to erupt; we are going to see it at sunrise on Friday on our way out of the park), and now blog time and then bed.  I'M ON VACAYSHUNNNN!!

I'm Going to Jackson

We camped Sunday night just outside Jackson, Wyoming, in a campground with 350 sites (huge!).  It should have been uneventful, except that the weather forecast ended up being unreliable (what a surprise!) and it rained like the dickens much of the evening.  In addition to the rain, the blow-up bed that we were sleeping on in the tent lost most of its air overnight, and so I ended up waking up around 2 am and realized that I was sleeping pretty much on the (cold, cold) ground.  Not the most restful of nights.  Oh yeah, and I also had to pee but didn’t want to wander around in the dark.  So, I slept off and on until about 6:30 am and then decided to stumble to the restroom.  I walked into the restroom, straight into a cloud of hairspray.  Apparently, some women don’t like to go camping without their blow dryers and hairspray (I still can’t figure out where this woman and her two daughters washed their hair; there were no showers and no hot water!).  The good news is that all the blow drying heated the bathroom nicely.  The other good news is that it was all so ludicrous that my grouchiness dissolved.

Finished with my bathroom activities, I went back to the campsite.  By this point, my fingers were numb and my face was frozen (it was cold out!) and there was Ron, standing next to the camp stove, ready to make coffee and breakfast.  I said, “Would you like to just go into town for a nice, hot breakfast with lots of coffee to wash it down?”  He said, “Ummmmm….is this a hint?”  (Ron has learned to think carefully before answering my questions).  So, we got into the truck and decided to drive into town.  After one turn in the campground, Ron said, “Look to the left.  Moose!”  And sure enough, there they were.  At first I thought they were playing, and then I realized that the smaller (a male) thought he’d try to become amorous with the larger (a female).  She was having none of it.  In fact, she was bucking with an arched back and all four feet off the ground, the way I’d seen some horses do in rodeos.  Then, ears laid back against her neck, she trotted away.  Poor Bullwinkle, ever hopeful, ran after her.  All of this was happening in front of our truck.  So, I grabbed my camera and hopped out (MAN, those things are big when they are only a few feet away!) and snapped a couple pictures.  I also cried a little because, come on, how often do you get to see a failed moose courtship right in front of your nose?  Boy, am I happy I suggested going out for breakfast!!

So, we went out to a place that the locals frequent, had great breakfast, I bought the warmest hat EVER at the Pendleton store on the way out of town, and then we packed up the tent and the gear and we were off to Yellowstone.  On our way to our cabin (which is one of the cabins right next to Lake Yellowstone), Ron stopped the car and said, “There’s your elk..” and, sure enough, there were some elk just walking along the side of the road and occasionally rubbing against a tree or grazing.  The best thing was that they had the grace to do this right next to a pullout.  SO, out of the car I pop, shoot some pictures, back into the car, and on our way merrily.  Wow.  Not even checked in yet, and already I have moose and elk on my camera.  Lucky girl.

Rest of the evening was mostly normal; had dinner, offloaded pictures onto my laptop, gave Ron a short lesson in using Lightroom, the usual stuff.

But oh, the things I’ve seen.  I will never, ever forget those moose as long as I live (and no, I did not give them a muffin).