Summer
       Vacation
          2001

Day 1 - departure
Day 2 - Pike's Peak
Day 3 - Wyoming
Day 3 - Yellowstone 1
Day 4 - Yellowstone 2
Day 4 - Yellowstone 3
Day 5 - Grand Teton 1
Day 6 - Grand Teton 2
Day 7 - Flaming Gorge
Day 8 - Maroon Bells
Day 9 - La Manga Pass
Day 10 - driving home

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Rawlins, Wyoming - Yellowstone National Park (part 2)

Yellowstone: West Thumb Geysers, Grand Canyon, Norris Geysers

Sunday, June 24, 2001 (cont.)

We reached Yellowstone National Park, our first main destination, in the second half of the afternoon. Over the day, we discussed changing the program a bit from the original plans to accommodate the available time and interests better. Instead of starting with the South loop and leaving the North loop for the next day, we decided to see Old Faithful and the Mammoth Hot Springs for the second day and see what we could fit at the East side of the park in the rest of the arrival day. This turned out to be a good decision.

When we came into the park through the South Entrance we first drove by a deep canyon where the black lava rock was still visible. The canyon was carved by the Lewis River, which lateron was on the side on about the same level as us. Another thing we saw pretty soon after entering was the damage that was done by the 1988 forest fires - big areas were covered by dead pinetrees standing and laying down. They leave them there to let nature recover itself, but, because of the elevation and the related average temperature, this can take about 200 years. In some places you can already see the new pinetrees grow in between the burned ones.

After the long trip everybody was ready for a little walk, so we stopped at the West Thumb Geyser Basin. There was a 'wood' walkway around a whole bunch of hot pools, puddles and small geysers, all in different colors and shades. The basin is located right at the shore of Yellowstone Lake, a huge body of water, lined by (dead and alive) trees and mountains. Some of the vents of this basin were actually located in the lake.

After the West Thumb Geyser Basin we kept going North, along the Yellowstone Lake. There are some geothermal features by the side of the road, but we skipped those, because we had to set some priorities - you can't see it all if you only have limited time.  We made our decisions based on the descriptions of the features Jennifer was reading from the very useful book, Frommer's Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. After quite a lot of miles, the Yellowstone Lake turned into the Yellowstone River at Fishing Bridge, the place we would stay with our RV lateron. We didn't check in yet and continued North towards and found a nice turn-out place called LeHardy Rapids, where we stayed to watch nature and make some pictures.

After the short stop, we went on to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. This area shows a dramatically different landscape than what we saw so far. The canyon features two big waterfalls, lined by yellow stone canyon walls. We stopped first at the Upper Falls and decided to take the trail along the canyon of about one mile to Artist Point. Grandpa drove the RV with Grandma to the Artist Point parking lot. This walk also took us by the Lower Falls. Because the trail went up and down quite a bit, which brought down our average strolling speed, it took us much longer than expected. Right when Grandpa and Grandma decided we were apparently lost and they were going to look for us, the group came out of the woods and we could step into the RV. Now it shows that we didn't even see the exact location with the name Artist Point, since that was at the other end of the parking lot, but what we saw was great and amazing.

The last thing we could do that day was to get to the Norris Geyser Basin area, which was across the park. We used the road that is a common part of both the South and the North loops. We visited the Porcelain Geyser Basin, which was touted as the most beautiful of the group. In the other adjacent basins, there are some of the biggest and most spectacular geysers, but the frequency of eruptions is measured in weeks and months, so the chances to actually see something there were very limited. The smell of sulphur and maybe other minerals in the steam was pretty strong, so Melissa called one of the geothermal features here 'Stinky Geyser'.

As it turned dark, the last part of the plan for that day was to have a cook-out at the Norris Basin Picnic Area. We put some charcoal in the fire ring and made hot dogs and s'mores. Those s'mores are hot marshmallows and Hershey chocolate on Graham crackers and are considered a campground treat.

After the meal we extinguished the fire and went back to the Fishing Bridge area, Southeast of Norris, which has a big RV park. During that ride, we saw lighting to the South and by the time we arrived ar the campground it was raining. We checked in at the 'late arrivals' desk outside the office and proceeded to our spot, which required backing the RV into it, which was a bit of a challenge in the dark. It was the first and only time we had to do the hook-ups in the rain. About ten minutes after we finished connecting the stuff, it stopped raining again, so we could have waited. It was not a big deal and a bit refreshing after a long, full day of great impressions.