8 Aug - Day 2 at Yellowstone National Park

8 Aug
<negativity alert> My laptop is junk and I was up late last night trying to get our pictures from day 2 downloaded, cropped, shrunk, etc and ready to post and I finally gave up for the evening.  Things are going a bit smoother this morning, so hopefully we can get this knocked out in a couple hours.  My wife has little sympathy as I should have replaced this thing a log time ago and now we are in the middle of a lengthy trip and I don't want to chew up vacation time trying to transition to a new laptop, but I may have to bite the proverbial bullet.  Whew, venting "phase 1" over!  Sorry!

Why a 9-1/2 hr Day #2?  Here it is:
Yellowstone, like most other national parks we have visited this summer, is crazy busy, depending on what time of the year you choose to visit.  There are five main entrances shown below.  I get the impression the north and west entrances are the main entrances.  We are camping about 30 minutes north of the north entrance in Montana.  Tons of tourists stay just outside the west entrance, also in Montana, due to the proximity to the main Yellowstone sites to include the biggy, Old Faithful.  So the roadways especially in those areas can be bumper to bumper.

To compound the issues,  about 11 out of the 21 miles of road from Mammoth Hot Springs south to Norris is under construction with pavement removed   and down to one lane.  So couple the heavy tourist traffic with inherent tourist delays with road construction delays, this place can be a real mess to get around.  Also the parking lots at many of the tourist sites are small and fill quickly.  Also, people are understandably gawking around at the sites, parking partially onto the roadways, driving slowly, stopping unpredictably and not paying attention to anyone else or their own driving for that matter.  Don't get me wrong, I am glad we are here and I am trying to be understanding to others.  

So, you can whine about all that or you can "improvise, adapt and overcome", to quote Clint Eastwood!!

And that is exactly what we did today (yesterday).  We got up at 0430 hrs (ARG!) and departed the RV park at 0500 hrs.  30 minutes down to Gardiner and we had virtually no wait to get into the park.  Early bird gets the worm!  The down side is the sun had not come up yet so Doreen was a ball of nerves riding the the truck.  It was overcast so the moonlight was not very bright also.  But, soon the sun started coming up and all is well.

Having experienced the road construction delays the day before, and the construction area was completely closed until 0700 hrs as the workers do their thing at night, we chose to come in the north entrance and take a left at Mammoth Hot Springs taking the "upper loop road" past Tower-Roosevelt to Canyon Village and then continue south around the "lower loop road" past Lake Village and Bay Bridge around the edge of Yellowstone Lake to Old Faithful.  That way we avoid all the construction delays and also we avoid the West Entrance traffic.

Another advantage of "early-birding" is that the critters come out early to graze on the dew-covered grasses early in the morning, before the heat of the day.  The drive from Mammoth Hot Springs especially to Bridge Bay resulted in many elk and bison sightings, some up close and personal!  We did not reach out and "scratch the beard" - not that close, but we did see a lot of wildlife which made the "early rise" well worth it. Here are a few bison pictures:

This one had just crossed the road in front of us

We had driven completely around the "upper loop road" yesterday, so today we did not stop on the upper loop except to take pictures of the critters, and continued on south to the lower loop, stopping at the sites and for the critter pictures also.  

One of the first sites we stopped was the Mud Volcano.  This area brings pungent sulphur smells because of the venting gasses through the muddy pools.  

There are many pools like this with gasses bubbling through.  It almost looks like the water is boiling up it is not.

Amazing, the sounds coming from the Dragon's Mouth Spring.  Strange! 

Across the road is Sulphur Calderon.  More of the same smells and gasses venting through the hydro-thermal pools.  

Further down the road we stopped for many elk grazing near the roadway.  

This one with antlers

One of the goals was to get to Old Faithful early to avoid the crowds, and we succeeded!  We arrived at Old Faithful shortly after 0900 hrs and basically "owned it".  There were very few tourists there at that time and therefore the parking lot was relatively empty.  We made our way from the parking area to the visitor center and there is a sign which they update to the next projected eruption time - 0955 hrs.  They say there is usually about 83 minutes between eruptions, but that varies greatly.  On 6 Aug there was an eruption at 1238 hrs and then not again until 1555 hrs, 3 hrs 17 minutes later!  It is tracked on this web site:  http://geysertimes.org/geyser.php?id=OldFaithful

So we had some time before the next projected eruption and we checked out the displays at the visitor center and walked around outside a bit.  The crowds start to gather 10-15 minutes before the projected eruption time.  The area surrounding Old Faithful is a large boardwalk with bench seating, but since it is raining today, no one was sitting on the benches.  

The crouds lining the board walk waiting for the eruption.

Everyone is hanging around , waiting for the "big blow"!

We stood around and struck up a conversation with the couple next to us, obvious Cubs fans since the guy had on a Cubs hat.  They were from Seattle, originally from the Chicago area.  Soon Old Faithful began to rumble and at 0957 hrs the geyser erupted!  It spouted steam and water for 3 minutes and 55 seconds.  It was quite a sight.  I had not seen old faithful since 1969 during a family vacation.

After Old faithful, we headed around the upper geyser basin and saw many more small geysers, bubbling pools and resulting travertine.

A beautiful stream nearby

Amazing travetine resulting from the geysers

Beehive Geyser

The minerals from geysers create these travertine stone deposits.  It's no wonder our kitchen, basement and bathroom floors at home look so nice!

At the parking lot we ate lunch and then headed north to complete the lower loop and then headed north  counter clockwise back around the east side of the upper loop towards the north entrance.  On our way we passed the Continental Divide, again.  

We headed into Mammoth Hot Springs to the post office.  We had some post cards and a box to mail to Jennifer deployed with the Air Force in SW Asia.  After we left Mammoth Hot Springs we stopped at the 45th parallel, which from the sign you can see is the latitudinal line, half way from the equator to the north pole (equator is 0 degrees north & south

, north pole is 90 degrees north).

We routinely use GPS coordinates rather than addresses in our GPS because addresses can mis-translate inside the GPS and be very misleading.  Well, the 45th parallel is 45.000000 and we wanted to get a picture of that on our GPS.  Traffic prevented us from stopping exactly on 45.000000, but we did get this one:

As we headed out the north entrance we stopped by the iconic Roosevelt Arch for a picture of the RAM.  Eveyone entering and exiting the park can travel through this stone arch:

So about 9-1/2 hours later we arrived back at the RV!  It was a very long day but we really enjoyed it.  We are both glad we got up early to avoid the crowds.  It was well worth it.  If you every visit this national Park you might consider a similar tactic.

Back at the RV, Doreen's "fun meter" was pegged out, so rather than cooking we headed about 18 miles north to Livingston MT, where we turned south from Interstate 90 to get to our campground.  Downtown Livingston is obviously very old but they have done a great job of revitalizing it.  It is full of shops and saloons, and all types of restaurants. 

We found a Mexican restaurant and enjoyed a margarita before dinner.  

After dinner we fueled the RAM and then back to the RV. A new neighbor rolled in and man, what a rig!  Made by a company called Sunsetter.  They specialize in combination horse trailer/RV's .  He does not have any horses, but he does have a Jeep and it fits in the back of this big momma!!  It makes our fifth wheel look like a pup!  This is a "toy hauler" and he pulls it with a semi truck.  The guy and his wife travel the country with this collecting gas station memorabilia including gas pumps!

I gave it my best shot to create this blog entry last night but the electronics just simply would not cooperate.  Things are working a bit better this morning, so here you go.  It is now lunchtime on the 9th and we are going to head north to Livingston and then west to the Montana Grizzly Encounter, which is a bear rescue and educational sanctuary (for naughty bears).