Yellowstone On the Fly

Sometimes I get the most harebrained ideas that I can hardly believe it.  Like the one I had about driving quickly through Yellowstone Park to get home. OK, I had been there before, but that was 30 years ago (!) with three little kids that I was trying to keep entertained, and on the boardwalks instead of on the ground. Who has time to see much with all those distractions?  (Relax, boys, it was still a great trip, although with different priorities. You will understand in a few more years….)

I hadn't really stopped to figure out mileage, and speed limits, and those kinds of things, so kind figured I could get through the park by about noon (left Livingston MT at about 7 AM).  Those who don't preplan pay the price!  There was too much to see, and this park deserves a return trip (along with Glacier).

The first attraction was Mammoth Hot Springs. I didn't remember them being so active, with lots of steam coming out, and water pouring off the side of one mound.  Then there was a drive around the hot springs that I also didn't remember – that was fascinating, when you imagine how huge those hot springs must be. If only we could harness that energy and heat…

Mammoth Hot Springs

I'm always alert for wildlife, and although I didn't see much in Yellowstone, there was still an eagle, a buffalo, and an elk. 

I remembered Morning Glory Pool from that long-ago trip, and when I passed the road to the Fountain Paint Pots area and saw a blue pool, I thought that was it. The traffic to get into the parking lot was horrific – you can see the cars backed up trying to get into the parking lot – and there were nowhere near enough parking spots for all the people.  I had decided to go on and returned to the road through the park when I found another entrance to the lot.  And, believe it or not, I actually found a parking place!  Luck was with me.  This was not Morning Glory pool, it was Silex Spring, and the map I had didn't even list where Morning Glory Pool was.  I knew there had been earthquakes that caused changes in the park, and I thought perhaps Morning Glory pool was one of the casualties.  But I just now looked it up, and found where it is. Turns out that it has changed, but not so much due to earth forces as people forces – so much trash and other stuff has been thrown into the pool that it is no longer the glorious blue that it used to be. So I'll have to keep that one as a really great memory. Still Silex Spring was really pretty.

Silex Spring

The crowds on the boardwalk to the springs

After a stop for lunch and a slow drive through the rest of the park with stops for waterfalls and pretty "wet" pictures, I finally reached my highway at 3:30 PM and still had about 200 miles to go to my planned overnight stop in Rawlins Wyoming. 

Lewis Falls

Along the Lewis River

Almost to my turnoff -- this is the Tetons

That overnight was planned so that I would have an easy trip the next day (Thursday) to Fountain CO and my sister's house, then another pretty easy day home on Friday. That was better planning, because those two days worked out fine. I got home about 2 PM on Friday, July 19, after 7 weeks and 5 days.

I have some more things I'd like to blog about so there will be at least one more post before I end this blog, but be assured there will be other trips. This one was so great, and so successful, that I'm already planning the next one!