Well, we woke up around 6 got ready for Yellowstone National park..the first majestic park to lead all the others! Yellowstone is truly amazing, so diverse, unexpected and extreme, located right on the largest thermoactive grounds in the world! (If the vulcano erupts it will almost be a global killer....davastating for life close by and possibly affect nature all over the planet..) so here we can talk about powerful nature..
The weather was not so good today either, so we decided to drive the two left loopes around the park. While driving here you want to stop all the time to take pictures..almost around every corner you see something spectacular! There's hot springs, geysers, waterfalls, beautiful creeks, boiling mud ponds, mountains, stunning views and if you are lucky bears, moose, deer, elk bison and more.. we saw 6 or 7 bison during our trip..plus several elk ( we dont have them in Sweden. ) They are in between a "kronhjort" and a moose in size.
Our first longer stop was at the West Thumb, here you walk around and look at several small fumaroles ( its like steaming hot springs) and smaller geysers. Many of them varies in colors because of different bacterias that inhabits them. These microorganisms are diverse species that are called extremofiles and they are adapted to live in extreme environments for example high temperatures or survive in different ranges of acidic environments. The color in each pond in short terms depends on which chemical ( inorganic) compounds the bacterias 'digest'...( I will skip more detailed explanations here...but its very interesting...)
We continued up to Old Faithful..the largest geyser in the park, and a huge tourist attraction...it erupts every 88 min ( +- 10 min..) In this area there are two different lodges..(they are usually fullbooked very long time in advance.. )visitor center, gas station, grocery store, yellowstone general store, giftshops.. so all in all very busy. It was alot of people here today, and I can only imagine a day in mid july- august... Anyway the big visitor center also have classrooms and educational areas about thermoactivity, geysers, vulcanoes etc. If we had older kids that would have been well spent time during the rain, but Natalie wanted to see the big old faithful... When we came we had a little over an hour to next predicted eruption so we ate lunch at Old faithful Inn, an amazing building with alot of history! Lunch buffe was good and healthy for around 11 usd.
In time for Old Faithful to get started we walked out and got the camera ready! ( Last time in Yellowstone 2008, me and Carolina were about to take pics the battery died...) It was kinda misty and a little windy today so between the white sky and the steaming water it was hard to get good pictures of the eruption, but its pretty cool anyway then few seconds it lasts! Personally I think Yellowstone has so much to offer so Old Faithful isn't the most spectacular....
To be continued.. and soon pictures...So many good places to take pictures
! No need for filters here..but the beauty and colors still can't be captured...
One picture of me..06 am...like a ranger hehe..
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