Road Trip – Omaha to Seattle – Day 21 – Yellowstone NP – October 1, 2010

30 degrees is freaking cold! I gotta look forward to that again tonight. I'm bundling up extra tonight though, and doing my blog earlier so I can put gloves on as soon as possible. But today was a good day. I took about 800 pictures, so it was pretty much all sightseeing. Woke up and put my contacts in and went potty. Headed up the lake to a place called West Thumb. It was about an hour after sunrise. The light was really great though and it was still cold enough where all the hot springs were really staeming so it made for excellent photos, I think. I may have just noticed the recurring spot I get on my image sensor or lens, so we'll see. I may have some photoshopping in my future. The beach was gorgeous though, and I knew it was going to be a good day.
I decided to go back to camp and finish getting ready and make breakfast. On the way back, there were two elk grazing right off the side of the road. Great pictures there. Got back to camp and it was still really cold, but warming up. I broke out the stove I borrowed from Beth and made myself some delicious bacon, eggs, and toast. Washed it down with some generic oj and was totally satisfied and ready for the rest of the day. By the time I brushed my teeth, did my dishes, and packed the car it was about 9:30 and I headed North up the east side of the park. Or so I thought. It appeared after a bit that this road was familiar. I had spaced off at the interchange and accidentally took the Old Faithful route again. Oh well. It was still a beautiful drive and I just corrected my path at the next junction. The roads are laid out in a figure 8, my camp is on the lower right lower circle. Old Faithful is on the lower left lower circle. So I just missed the upper left lower circle, and cut across the middle and headed up the right side of the upper circle. (?)
Anyway, I ran across a place the ranger had mentioned that when you get out of the caldera, you can drive up Mt. Washburn, the mountain closest to the upper rim of the caldera, and see a mountain on the lower rim. This, he said, would give me a scale of how big this volcano is. I drove up the potholed road at a huge incline. My knuckle bearing didn't like me very much. At the top, it was another 3 mile hike to the summit, but there was a controlled fire going on and visibility was super low, so I decided against it. I may try again tomorrow if I'm up to it. Truth be told, I'm almost ready to be home, even though I've been surrounded by such beauty. I want to do a couple more things in the morning, but hopefully I'm in Cheyenne tomorrow night. So, anyway, I drove back down the steep grade and at this point, I'm near the top right of the upper loop. Traffic was slow, but I could see why. The valley cut down super low and got rocky. Limestone and basalt cliffs, over a blue river. I pulled off a few times. Then the trees started turning yellows and reds for a bit, took some more pics, walked around. After a little bit, there were a couple cars pulled over where it looked like they shouldn't really be. There were 50 bison in the field right in front of us! Later on the same thing happened and there were two yellowish coyotes running through a field. Great pics of both. Soon enough, I had arrived in Mammoth Springs. I filled up my tank, probably could've waited, but I was getting scared. The day of driving 45 mph the whole time had my mileage at 356 miles and I still had over 1/8 of a tank! I think I could've made it to 450. Either way, I got 30 mpg out of the subaru and was quite content.
Mammoth Springs was cool, but I had really been looking forward to it, and a lot of the springs were actually dormant or dried up, so it was just cool rock formations. Still awesome, just not what I had hoped. I spent a good deal of time there though, hiking and taking pictures. Ate my lunch off the hood of my car. I had a can of Chef Boyardee's Mac and Cheese left over from either Paddy or Tom. It was the worst thing I can remember eating in awhile. I threw ¼ of it away, and if you know me, I never do that. I was raised with four other kids and we never wasted. Except for the braunshwager incident. ;) Luckily, I had some leftover buffalo jerky and some cookies to get that flavor out of my mouth.
Headed down the left side of the upper loop and pulled off near Norris to check out some geysers. I was starting to get worried about the light though and left a bit early to try and get to the mud volcano for sundown. On the way, stopped at a valley with no less than 60 bison in it and got to the mud volcano. Bubbling pools of mud, sulfur pools, vents, fumaroles, and more. T was cool, there were more bison on the trail this time. We passed in between them, and they were about 5 yards away. Pretty big no no, but it was exhilarating. Just then, I met a man from Transylvania who currently lives in Italy. He was on a trip by himself as well, and we talked and walked for awhile. Turns out he was in Glacier NP about a week earlier and came around a bend on a hike to be about 4 yards away from a female grizzly bear and her two cubs! They left, but he said that definitely got hid heart pumping. I was sorta jealous. If I could see a mountain goat, bighorn sheep and a bear, my trip would officially be the best ever. Nevertheless, I continued on my way, and decided against his advice to go north to artist point for an after sunset waterfall photo opp, and I headed south toward my campsite and toward Yellowstone Lake. The sunset was a beautiful violet over the lake, and I got some really great photos. I did have a moment of remorse because I don't think I have any sunset waterfall pics. But my hands are freezing right now as I type and I keep making typos, so I;m glad I got back to camp an hour earlier than I would have.
Turned out of the lake area and had about 25 miles to go back to camp. I was behind a Massachusetts license plated Volvo the whole time, and it turned out, they are in the campsite next to me. I think they think I might murder them or something because they are just now getting out of their car, and it has been about an hour or more. Maybe they're cool with me now that I have been typing for 30 minutes. Not sure, but I'm cold and hungry. I'm going to bundle up a little more, start a fire, have a beer or two, cook some brats and go to bed.