Roadwarners

I’ve been very excited to get to Grand Teton National Park. 6th National Park. The cold came early so a lot in the Teton’s is closed, but they do have 2 campgrounds still open. We stayed in Colter Bay and got there with enough light to ride bikes along the water. So spectacular. The Tetons are jaw dropping.

Vera spotted a beaver down in the water and we hung out and watched her work for quite awhile. Even though you know what beavers do, its a completely different thing to watch it happen in person. This beaver was building its dam underneath the boat ramp. It started swimming away from the boat ramp to the shore on the other side over 100 yards away. I’ve never seen Vera move so fast 🙂 She grabbed her bike and biked along the shore to follow the beaver. Threw her bike down and ran along the shore to watch the beaver climb/walk/waddle up on shore, chew down a branch and then back into the water. The rest of us stayed near the boat ramp and we see the beaver back in the water, Vera back on her bike riding fast back towards us. We were hanging out right near her dam when about a few feet away she slammed her tail against the water and dove down with the branch in her mouth. We hung out for at least 10 minutes waiting for the beaver to surface again. How long can beavers hold their breath? I don’t know, we haven’t looked it up yet. Maybe she hung out in her den for awhile since she knew we were watching her.

We decided to ride our bikes along the peninsula to watch the sunset and scope out a place we were could watch the sunrise the next morning. I like it here. Could stand it to be a few degrees warmer, but also imagining the craziness of people that would be here if that was the case.

We were happy to be in a campground tonight where we were able to plug in. The heat was cranked, Edwin made a yummy dinner while we all took showers in the RV for the first time. Don’t worry, we have showered more than once this last month, but we’ve either back at home, taking showers at friends houses or using the public showers at a campground. The showers were warm and successful. Yay! Only one little hiccup… Vera went in first, all was good. My mom went second and of course the fresh water ran out so my poor mom hung out in the shower while Edwin filled up the fresh water. Then the hot water heater wasn’t working. But Edwin is Edwin and is awesome and doesn’t give up so he got it all back up and running. Can’t tell you how good it felt to take a shower tonight after a few days in Yellowstone. We all sat down to a delicious dinner around the table, happy, tired, and CLEAN 🙂 How simple it can be to feel content.

We decided last night that we would drive through Canyon on the way to Yellowstone Lake on our way out of Yellowstone. Edwin and I woke up early so we decided to pull in the side of the RV and drive to Artist’s Point while my mom and the kids were asleep, one of our favorite spots from the first day near Canyon. It was nice to be there without the crowds. I can see why they call it Artist’s Point. It is the most photographed view in Yellowstone. We took a little hike along the South Rim to Ribbon Lake. The morning sun was shining on the canyon and the amount of colors were incredible. Reds, yellows, oranges, greens. Because of the weather we hadn’t spent a lot of time off the main trafficked areas. It was nice to get onto a trail and have a some tranquility in the beauty.

We went back to the Canyon visitor center and the girls completed their science badges. I know I said this yesterday, but I feel like I finally went full circle in my understanding of Yellowstone. They do a really complete job and give so much information. Here’s some more information from the Canyon visitor center as we didn’t realize there was a whole second floor.

Native Americans used the colors from all the different hydrothermal areas to paint their bodies and the buffalo hides

The Yellowstone caldera is huge…45 miles by 34 miles. Crater Lake which looks huge is tiny in comparison, 6 miles wide

On the way to Lake Yellowstone we stopped by another series of mud pots with cold names like “Black Dragon’s Cauldron”, “Sizzling Basin”, “Grizzly Fumarole”, “Churning Cauldron”, “Sour Lake”, “Dragon’s Mouth Spring”.

We went to the “big thumb” part of Lake Yellowstone and I was just expecting the lake so don’t know why I was surprised to see the lake with a boardwalk of another series of springs and fumaroles. The lake looked appetizing to go into, but its not allowed. Just as I was saying this to my mom and noticed elk literally frolicking in the lake just 100 yards from us. They looked like dogs jumping around the shallows. And you know when dogs get wet they get crazy hyper, so did this baby elk. It was trying to get its mom to play with him, but she wasn’t having it. They sauntered over grazing along the way and ended up only feet from us.

They had these super cool springs right near the water and it is said that the Native American’s and also the first mountaineers would go fishing, casting their fishing rod into the lake and then without removing the fish from the rod, dip the pole into the spring to cook the fish and then eat it. Both swimming in the water and fishing/cooking made me wish we could do that too. It started snowing again when we got to the Lake but the somehow the colors in the springs were more vibrant than those inside the basin.

Goodbye Yellowstone. It was a lovely time. Considering the cold snap the Northwest is having we felt like we lucked out with the weather and everything seemed to just work out. Off to the Tetons.

SNOW! Really? In September?! We dropped what we thought was quite a bit of elevation from Canyon last night and even though we knew it would maybe snow we were still a little surprised to wake up to snow. Now we were really happy that we did the drive to Canyon yesterday, got over the pass, and got out of there as well. Other than the, “this sucks we’ll have to put on chains” and the “we didn’t really come equipped with snow gear” the snow was beautiful. It was fun to tromp around it in the morning and there weren’t many campers up there so it was a beautiful walk along the creek. Then the hilarious camp host came roaring around on his golf cart telling everyone that we had to be out by 9am so off we went.

Our destination was the Old Faithful visitor center to pick up the 2nd “young scientist” booklet Yellowstone offers but somehow missed the turn and ended up in West Yellowstone. Which in the end was fine, because the distances aren’t all that far and we saw so many more animals along the way. Mainly elk and bison, but watching bison cross rivers in the the snow is just really neat and I don’t get bored of it.

Once we were back on track towards Old Faithful we went by all the springs and mud pots. What a trip the mud pots were. Listening to those bubble and roar is a little scary, but also visually satisfying. The colors in all the springs and bacterial mats are mesmerizing and to see all those colors in one area feels unbelievable. What I didn’t quite realize as we were driving around Yellowstone yesterday and feel like I must’ve known this, but it didn’t really quite sink in until driving around today…is that Yellowstone National Park is an active volcano. You can’t help but imagine the world billions of years ago when there was just algae and bacteria, the beginning signs of life. Not till I saw these today, did I realize how amazing, but also scary Yellowstone is. Yesterday at the visitor center at Canyon focused on Yellowstone being a super volcano, but not till driving around was it all really starting to make sense. I think we were too tired and had so much other inputs at that point last night. Anyway…here’s my educational part of Yellowstone, for those of you who are actually reading this and/or care 🙂

Most of Yellowstone National Park is part of what is known as the Yellowstone Caldera. We are currently sitting a top the MOST ACTIVE hot spot in North America and is considered to be the LARGEST SUPERVOLCANO in the world. It erupted 2.1 million years ago, 1.2 million years ago, and again 640,000 years ago. The latest eruption 640,000 years ago (1000x times greater than the eruption at Mt. St. Helens) is what created the yellowstone caldera as we know it today. It is 45 x 28 miles wide. The caldera is huge! Everything inside this Yellowstone caldera is the National Park. All the beauty and geothermal phenomena are because it is currently an active hot spot. The geysers, the mudpots, the fumaroles, and springs are all because we are above an active volcano. It’s kind of a trip that we are walking and driving ON TOP of an ACTIVE VOLCANO. The magma (called magma below ground, lava above ground) is only 3 miles below the ground in some areas. It is the magma heating up the water that causes all these spectacular things to exist. It is almost a definite that it will erupt again, but it may not be for another few hundred thousand years in the future…hopefully 🙂 Yellowstone is very active and has over 2,500 earthquakes a year.

The difference between Geysers, springs, mudpots, and fumaroles…it all depends on the type of rock, level of heat, and the amount of water. GEYSERS, what we think of when we think of Yellowstone, like Old Faithful: The rock under geysers are hard and do not break down under with the heat and water. The water heats up and wants to escape but they have constrictions in their “plumbing” that allow pressure to build, causing an eruption. 2/3 of the world’s geysers are in Yellowstone. HOT SPRINGS, like the “Great Prismatic Spring” that Yellowstone is famous for, is a large pool that amazing electric blue color that turns to green and is bordered with orange/yellow/red/brown. In hot springs, water circulates freely to the surface. The color comes from the minerals; microscopic heat loving bacteria and refracted light. In the blue areas the water is too hot for bacteria to grow. Near the edges thermophiles, heat loving bacteria, make the brown, orange, red, yellow, and green colors. MUD POTS, look like boiling pots of clay. Thermophiles use the hydrogen sulfide gas that rises from the magma chamber and turn the hydrogen sulfide gas into sulfuric acid. The acidic water then dissolves the rock into mud and clay. The thickness of the mud pots vary with precipitation and can change from a soupy consistency to the consistency of boiling thick oatmeal. FUMAROLES are steam vents. They are similar to geysers but there is so little water that it all turns to steam before it reaches the surface and produces a hissing noise. They are the hottest hydrothermal features in the park.

Crazy, right? Again, I though I knew some of this, but this is really the huge added bonus of doing this with our kids. I’m so intent on having them learn about the national parks and not taking this “homeschooling” as a joke that its forcing me to learn and understand more and better about the why then just looking at the beauty of it. It’s really quite fun.

Anyway after seeing all the mudpots and springs on the way to Old Faithful we finally got what I was really waiting for…the bison traffic jams. They are just so cool and fun. Well at least in the fall when its not already traffic jam 🙂 The herd looked like it was easily a 100 and some were bolting across the road so fast you really are amazed that these large animals can move that fast. We ran into a few other ones to, but often just a solitary buffalo crossing the road and walking right by your car.

After all that, the day was still not over and we finally made it to the Old Faithful visitor center. Picked up the young scientist packet there, saw Old Faithful erupt, watched the educational movies, walked around and read all the exhibits…and by now it was finally all coming together. I was now feeling bummed that we didn’t have more time to learn at the Canyon visitor center which focused on the “supervolcano” aspect.

Here is my PSA of the day…PICK UP YOUR OWN GARBAGE. It was snowing when we went to see Old Faithful erupt and all the benches were wet, so I ran inside and grabbed some toilet paper to dry off the bench so we could sit for a minute. Apparently we weren’t the only ones with that idea…but we may be one of the few that clean up after ourselves…because there were 2 old ladies that their SOLE job was to go around and pick up the left over toilet paper people used to dry off the benches after each Old Faithful eruption. I was disgusted to see these old ladies have to bend over and pick up everyone else’s trash. I’ll have a picture below of the amount she came back with. I asked if I could take a picture and she said “yes, but this is not a proud moment”. THROW YOUR TRASH IN THE GARBAGE PEOPLE.

We went to dinner at the Old Faithful Lodge…just because. The dinner was nothing exciting, but glad we went. The lodge is the original lodge and the 85’ fireplace was pretty neat. The girls worked on their junior ranger and scientist packets at these adorable desks in the lodge for another hour after dinner and we closed the visitor center down at 8pm so they could receive their badges.

No camping at Old Faithful so we drove back to Madison campground near the west side of the park. We barely made it through one round of canasta before we went to bed.

The weather is not what we ordered…but we did wake up to some elk right outside the RV this morning…so that was pretty neat. We started off at the Mammoth Hot Springs visitor center and got the kids going on their junior ranger patches. There’s always something interesting to learn when you take the time to read everything inside before you head out into the park. Here are some tidbits…

Yellowstone National was the FIRST national park in the United States. It became a national park on March 1, 1982 under President Ulysses S. Grant.

Animals that have antlers such as elk, deer, and moose lose their antlers every year. Antlers are one of the fastest growing bones. Even though I knew deer lose their antlers every year, its pretty crazy to think that elk and moose re-grow those giant antlers each year.

Contrary to above, horned animals, like pronghorn sheep and bighorn sheep, keep their horns for life. If one breaks, the broken part does NOT grow back. Both males and females grow horns. Similar to your fingernails, horns, hooves, and claws are all made of keratin but horns have a bony core and are rock hard. Fun fact, to guess the age of a bighorn ram, you can count the rings on its horns similar to tree rings.

Yellowstone National Park helped save the bison. Once there was an estimated 30-60 million bison in North America. By 1901 there were less than 50 in Yellowstone. In 1902 Congress funded a restoration program, bought and moved 21 genetically pure bison to the Lamar Valley. Now there are around 4,500 in Yellowstone National Park.

We decided to do a ranger led walk up through the Mammoth terraces but somehow weren’t at the correct meeting spot. We finally caught up with them 1/2 way through but only stayed for about 15 minutes. It was raining, we were freezing, and I don’t think he could’ve talked any slower or without enthusiasm. But we read enough that we understood the geology of what was going on. The terraces are really pretty and intricate. The soil here is primarily limestone. Limestone is essentially old sea floor bed, a lot of calcium carbonate that came from old sea shells, coral, etc… This is soft rock and the the heat from below the earth dissolves the “soft” limestone and is re-deposited above the surface as travertine. Because the rock is soft, no pressure really builds up and the water flows up freely and the process is fairly quick. Back in the day there was a gentlemen that would sell “souvenirs” to tourists. He would have them pick something out like a comb, fork or horseshoe. He would leave them in mammoth hot springs for a period of 5 days and when the tourist would return at the end of their trip, the souvenir would be covered in travertine.

We then drove to Lamar Valley where we got to see the bison roaming the valley. I think the bison in Yellowstone are my favorite thing to see. They are so big, so many, and I just like watching them move. There were no bison traffic jams as I remember from my time here 15 years ago, but watching them down in the valley, there’s something majestic about them.

We heard that today would be raining, but that most likely tomorrow would be snowing. Edwin did buy chains for the RV but was also hoping that would be a “just in case” and not actually have to use them so we decided to continue driving to Canyon which is one of the more treacherous and high in elevation drives. On the way you drive by the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. The rock formations are super neat along the road too. It’s also where we saw a black bear sleeping in a crook of a tree. It was quite the drive. We rose above 8000 feet and was happy it was not snowing. But there was snow at the top of Dunraven Pass so I jumped out to get a picture of the summit, threw some snowballs at the car windows, and grabbed some snow to make a coke slurpee. We got to the Canyon visitor center just before closing and picked up a “Scientist in Training” booklet that is offered both at the Canyon and Old Faithful visitor lodge. We drove to Artist Point at Lower Falls and was blown away. Even in the rain the colors were amazing. We did not have enough time here but it was starting to get dark…and it was STILL RAINING.

No camping at Canyon so we drove down to Norris campground and were happy we got there. Had an amazing spot right next to this beautiful winding creek and decided it was the night to show my mom and the girls A River Runs Through It. We watched the first “happy hour” before we turned it off and went to bed.

Made it Yellowstone. 4th national park. It’s nice today but might be snowing the next few days. But did already see some elk and pronghorn sheep, even if they were just around the visitor center.

oOh also in Wyoming. 5th state.

The Museum of the Rockies (MOR) houses the largest collection of dinosaur fossils in the country. A lot of dinosaur remnants were/are found in the state of Montana. The size of these animals in immense. Ready to show the girls the original Jurassic Park tonight 🙂

The have a T-Rex that still has its lower rib bones, one of the only ones that kept them during fossilization.

They also have the first and only evidence of a female t-Rex. When they sliced the femur bone there was still some soft tissue inside. They analyzed it and it was identical to that of a bird during ovulation. Thus, they house the first and only B-Rex named “Catherine”.

In the back of the skull of the Triceratops is a “ball joint” for a better lack of description. It is still the most spherical shape found in nature up to this date. The ability it gave this animal to move and rotate its head is unbelievable. Pics below.

Then we quickly walked through the Genghis Khan exhibit who ruled from 1206-1227. The Magyars supposedly came over from Mongolia and were also known to be great horseman. Genghis Khan ushered in many new aspects into culture that are still carried on today. Such as, religious freedom / one nation under many Gods, national parks/preserves, ground beef, forks (which were until then considered to be effeminate), coal, and a-meritocracy. Even now they say 1 in 16 males share the same Y chromosome as Genghis Khan.

Who thinks the start of the Missouri River starts in Missouri? Well it doesn’t. It starts in Montana, in what was known as old “Gallatin City I & II” of the mid 1800s.

“The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri River and such principal stream of it, as, by it’s course & communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean…may offer the most direct & practible water communication across this continent…” from Thomas Jefferson’s instructions to Meriwether Lewis, July 4, 1803.

Here 3 Rivers flow into what is the beginning of the Might Missouri River. The Gallatin river was named and Lewis and Clark named the other 2 the Jefferson River and the Madison River. The Madison River flows into the Jefferson River and then the Gallatin River runs into that as it forms the beginning of the Missouri River.

This was also the site of Colter’s Run. I’ll just put a picture of the story so I don’t have to copy it 🙂

Right past the Fairmont Hot Springs is the town of Butte. There is always something to see anywhere. The highlight of Butte was a the “Our Lady of the Rockies” statue, which happens to be the 4th largest statue in the United States. The Statue of Liberty is only the 2nd tallest. The tallest is in Puerto Rico, the “Birth of the New World” (a Christopher Columbus and his ship). The 3rd largest is in Florida of a “Pegasus and Dragon”. Yes Chloe, we will go see and take pictures for you :). And this Lady of the Rockies is the 4th. We did not take the tour to go up, but Edwin did take a picture through binoculars just so we could show it off.

The other highlight that Butte has to offer is the one of the first and largest Superfund sites in America, the Berkeley Pit. It is 1 mile long by 1/2 mile wide and 1,780’ deep. It was a large copper and silver mine in the mid 1800s. It was closed on Earth Day in 1982 and the pit is filling with water but it is heavily laden with metals. They are working hard to divert the water before the it reaches the water table (which is supposed to happen in 2020) because then it will contaminate all the drinking water in Butte and the surrounding area, the Clark-Fork River. Pretty awful. We were there before 9 when you could go to the viewing platform so of course we just went up the hill to look over. Edwin could see the “lake” but I couldn’t so I climbed the fence until Edwin yelled at me to get do-win because he could hear the alarm sounding in the distance from me climbing up there. There’s a pic below of Edwin helping me down so I didn’t get hurt from the fence up top. Edwin was not so happy. Vera ran back to the RV scared the police were going to come. I just wanted a look…. 👀 🙂