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| Road Trip 2004 - links to images and words on the road to see Rush:
Thursday July 1, 2004 Friday July 2, 2004 Saturday July 3, 2004 Yellowstone National Park - Geysers, Bison, Trees and more. Coolness... 
Came into Yellowstone from the south, thru Grand Teton National Park. Great view, good weather for the most part.
On to Yellowstone!
Ranger-led hike near Yellowstone lake
Yellowstone Canyon area
Artists Paint Pots near Norris Geyser Basin - bus tour pictures
Norris Geyser Basin
Old Faithful Inn
Back at the Yellowstone Lake Lodge
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Thursday July 1, 2004 We made for Yellowstone today, the weather sunny as we started out. The farther north we traveled, the cloudier it got. There was mixed rain and sun in Grand Teton National Park. More amazing views along the drive, the Tetons are an impressive set of mountains. We stopped at Jenny Lake for some snapshots and pressed onward into Yellowstone. After driving through a 20-mile long construction zone we finally hit the south entrance to Yellowstone National Park. It never fails to surprise me, the length of the drive from the park entrance to where you might be staying. After coming through the south entrance, it was still another 60 miles to the Yellowstone Lake Hotel! We drove along the shoreline of Lake Yellowstone, which covers 88,000 acres and has 142 miles of shoreline. It is HUGE. We missed a turn for the hotel and ended up at the Fishing Bridge, where we stopped and saw some Bison up close. After backtracking a bit, we checked into the hotel and headed over to the Lodge for a cafeteria dinner. The food was pretty good; the Xanterra folks know how to run the concessions for the national parks. After dinner, we headed back over to the Hotel. Caught the sunset over Lake Yellowstone, storm clouds threatening in the distance. Later, we saw the moonrise over the pines.
Friday July 2, 2004 After a great buffet breakfast in the hotel dining room, we headed off to see the sights. We started with a ranger-led walk covering Storm Point and some of the forest of Lake Yellowstone. While waiting for the ranger to show up, we watched the bison grazing 15 feet from us at the trailhead at Indian Pond. The ranger arrived and led us on a 2.8-mile hike through grassland, beach, forest and back. He was a great teacher, has been working at Yellowstone for the past 14 years. We saw yellow‑bellied marmots; some more bison, pelicans, and a squirrel meddle (a large hoard of nuts and pine cones about 10 feet in diameter). After lunch we headed up to Yellowstone Canyon. There we saw the lower Yellowstone Falls; and caught another ranger talk on birds found in the park. She had set up a telescope and we got to see an osprey nest built high atop a needle of stone. Ospreys are only 3 to 4 pounds, but they build nests that are about 4 feet in diameter and that weigh 600 to 1100 pounds!! Busy birds indeed, but the nests help to keep the hatchlings safe from predators. We found Mike Kathy and Matt again at the Canyon lodge, and caught an early dinner there. We waited out the time for our Yellowstone bus tour shopping in the gift shop. The bus tour was a nice way to see some of the park guided by a knowledgeable driver. Since the Chittenden pass was closed for construction, he took us west to the Artists Paint Pots near the Norris Geyser basin. We saw uniquely colored pools and a huge bubbling mud hole, testament to the constant geothermal activity roiling below the park. On the return trip, we sidetracked to the Virginia Cascade to catch the sunset on the rocks. A cascade is a sort of slanted waterfall, where the water slides downhill as opposed to falling off a cliff. We just missed the best light for pictures (by only 10 minutes, max) but it was an impressive sight to see nonetheless. The road leading to the vista point is an old one-lane stagecoach road thankfully it is only one way! The driver pointed out rope burn marks on some of the lodgepole pine trees where the earliest visitors had lowered the stagecoaches by rope to the bottom of a ravine to get closer to the cascade. Extreme vacations began here in the 1880's I suppose. The park has radically changed what is allowable over the years, especially after the huge fires of 1988. After returning to the Canyon Lodge, we made the 21-mile drive back over a hard-packed dirt road (construction everywhere it seems) to Yellowstone Lake Hotel at night. Everyone collapsed into bed after a long day.
Saturday July 3, 2004 Today we split from the Bytners we headed to Norris Geyser Basin to catch a ranger led hike through the Porcelain Basin, and Mike Kathy and Matt headed over to Old Faithful, intending to catch a wildlife hike at the Fishing Bridge later in the day. The weather was fantastic, sunny and warm as we poked around the Norris museum and exhibits. We met up with the park ranger and about eight other people and began to make the loop through the Porcelain Basin. This ranger was a 20-something from SoCal, blond and blue-eyed looking like she belonged on a surfboard not the geyser walk. She had been in the Norris basin for two years after working up in Mammoth the previous two. The signs all over the walkways and exhibits really try to put the fear of death into the visitors. They detail how you are walking through an area where the water comes out of the ground at 200 degrees (the boiling point at such a high elevation) and has a Ph of 1.5 to 3.5 essentially boiling battery acid. Everywhere on the trail entrances are signs warning to keep an eye on your children because all that keeps them from dropping into a certain agonizing death is a fragile crust of hardened sulfur salts So for GOD'S SAKE DONT WALK OFF THE BOARDWALK OR MARKED TRAILS!!!!!!!!! Works for me. The ranger talked about how Yellowstone is a large caldera, and that the whole park is on top of a large pool of magma. Everywhere is the smell of sulfur steam and smoke bubble up through the various pools and vents. We saw deep blue pools gently boiling, mud pots bubbling up steam through a thick sulfur mud mix and amazing deep green streams. The colors are from the various bacteria and algae that live in the hot water some of the breakthroughs in DNA replication came from studying the bacteria that live in the waters here. Thermus Aquaticus found in some of the pools and streams here produces an enzyme used in DNA "fingerprinting" and testing for the virus that causes AIDS. Halfway through the walk, we pass by Whirligig Geyser, which erupts every 4 hours or so. The ranger said it usually goes off during this walk, and we were lucky enough to catch it before we left. It spouts in three separate shots, the last being the longest and lasting almost 2 minutes. Quite a sight as we were maybe 20 feet away as it shot water up into the air nearly 10 feet. Portions of the back trail had been closed as the ground temperature was above 200 degrees and some areas under the boardwalk had gone hollow. We did see Steamboat Geyser shoot about 8 feet up, constantly roiling and spouting smaller gushes of water. When it really goes off, it shoots 380 feet in the air, the largest geyser. It hasn't spouted like that since October of 2003 though. Along the way, we notice a young boy four or five maybe happily putting his hands in the runoff of a geyser. His father was pointing at a rock for him to pick up. Figures, they must have missed the signs that warn of the dangers of such activities. I guess they will have to learn the hard way there isn't really any running water here to rinse off the sulfuric acid which will cause the boy's hands to burn in a very short time. Stupidity of the father visited on the son. Parents are supposed to know better! We leave the Norris Geyser Basin and hit the road to see Old Faithful. We stop for a time for an animal jam, as a pair of large elk cross the road. One large buck dang near put his head into the passenger window of the car! Karen quickly closed it to keep him moving on his way. We finally hit Old Faithful at 2:30 CST. Clouds had rolled in, threatening rain but never really producing any real drops. The Old Faithful Inn had just celebrated its 100th anniversary the week before. Truly a spectacular building, it is some 80 feet tall, built of timber with three levels in the main lobby and catwalks reaching all the way to the top inside. The Inn barely escaped the fires of 1988, literally the forest burned to within 100 yards or closer. We wandered around inside, snapping pictures and videos and hitting the gift shop. We decided to eat lunch there, and enjoyed a really good buffet. The beef soup was very tasty, as was the BBQ chicken. They had apple crisp with a killer amount of cinnamon in it, too much for me. After lunch we wandered out to the 2nd level porch (or the top of the Porte Cochere) to watch Old Faithful erupt. The sun was blazing down on us, with clouds rolling around to the east. Old Faithful erupted within four minutes of the predicted time, still keeping to a schedule after all these years. After catching up with Mike, he told us that the evening animal walk had turned into an animal talk instead. They got caught in a hailstorm driving from Old Faithful back to the Yellowstone Lake Hotel we lucked out and did not get hit with a drop of rain all day.
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