Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

Yellowstone: Day 1 
The first thing we saw in Yellowstone was Mammoth Hot Springs. The hot springs also smelled awful because there was lots of hydrogen sulfide. There were also thermophilic bacteria underneath the crust of the Rock and stone that

were chemosynthesizers.  This means that these bacteria use the hydrogen sulfide to create energy.  There were also things that looked like fuzzy rock mats under shallow water.  Believe it or not these are actually strands of thousands of bacteria linked together, and unlike the ones under the rock these bacteria photosynthesize and would be killed if the other bacteria did not use the hydrogen sulfide. 

As we drove back to our campsite we saw a heard of elk grazing right in the middle of the town.  There were dozens of people watching them, taking pictures, and the elk didn't even seem to notice or mind as if this was an

everyday occurrence.  As we soon found out after talking to a park ranger the elk would come by every few days, and stay there for a while.  Every time this happened lots of tourists would come by to take pictures, and a park ranger would have to come by because there was the occasional idiot who came within ten feet of a elk (you are supposed to stay 25 yards away) and get themselves hurt with a swift hoof in the head.

In the evening we decided to check out a place we had heard about called the Boiling River.  We had heard that it was where an underground tunnel filled with water from the Mammoth Hot Springs spilled into the Gardiner River and created naturally warm pools. At first when we got there it wasn't so relaxing. The air was freezing, it

was raining like crazy, and believe me when I tell you we had very different ways of dealing with the cold. My mom took it slow.  She rooted around in the truck, and found her rain coat. She had on long pants and wrapped a towel around her neck like a scarf. Then she ambled slowly down to the river keeping her head bowed the entire time.  My dad and I went for the minimalist approach.  We put on swimsuits and ran down the half mile streak in the freezing rain as fast as we possibly could.  By the time we got to the river I couldn't feel my legs, hands, or face, but I felt great.  The river was a little inconsistent, but it still felt nice.  Sometimes too much cold water got in, and it was freezing.  Sometimes not enough got in, and I felt like a lobster being cooked, but most of the time it was just right.  We had to leave after about two hours because my mom was getting bored, and we needed to make dinner before it got dark.

Yellowstone: Day 2

Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

Pronghorn

Today we hiked a trail called Specimen Ridge Trail. As we were going up, my mom and I started freaking out because there was a huge buffalo laying about 20 feet off to the side of the trail.  Since we didn't want to be gored by an 8 inch horn we decided to stay well back, and wait for him to move on. Oh boy did he take his time. We were waiting there at least 10 minutes for him to move about 100 feet.  When he finally moved, and we could start hiking, we kept going up the trail all the while thinking “Is that a bear, is that a bear, is that a bear,” and generally terrifying ourselves. When we got to the top it was well worth it. We saw a place called the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone which I think should be renamed the Not so Grand Canyon, or the Slightly Grandish Canyon , but it was still worth it. On the way down we saw an entire herd of Pronghorn.  They must have a thought we were following them because they started running through the woods down toward where we had seen the buffalo earlier. We continued walking, and by now they were definitely thinking, “Why are these people following us,” because they had run right into the middle of the trail which entailed another 10 minute wait for them to move out of the way.

Yellowstone: Day 3

Day three started out with a lot of walking. We went down several hundred steps to a waterfall. The waterfall was not as exciting as I was hoping. There was no giant waterside, or 20 foot jump into the pool below. It was just a big waterfall. Then we walked back up all of the steps (yay).  My favorite part of day three was the Canyon Visitor Center. There were a lot of exhibits on how the park was formed and on the giant volcano that erupted a long time ago and created the giant caldera in Yellowstone. There was also a giant granite globe that had all of the volcanic hotspots in the world illustrated.  The cool thing about it was how it had a steady stream of water pushing up against the globe on its pedestal. The water levitated the globe about an eighth of an inch above the pedestal, allowing the globe to spin in every direction.

After that we went to see Old Faithful Geyser and that entire area. We got to see three geysers erupt at the same time which was pretty cool. My favorite part of that section was either Anemone or Spasmodic Geyser. Anemone had a lot of cool formations from the bacteria linking together. Spasmodic was a ton of mini geysers that were all constantly erupting, so it just looked almost hypnotic. After Old Faithful we went to see a place called Black Sand Geyser Basin. The name doesn't give it credit because it was one of the most colorful places I had seen while being at Yellowstone. 

Yellowstone: Day 4

Day four involves a lot of tourists. The first thing we did was go to look at Grand Prismatic Spring which was the thing that had been my top priority the entire time at Yellowstone. After finally getting through the mobs of people on the boardwalk we saw Grand Prismatic, and it was nothing but steam. The entire thing was completely covered in steam. After getting back through the tourists, who for some reason wanted to take pictures of the giant steam cloud, we decided to drive a road along Firehole River.  We stopped along the river to go swimming, and it was freezing. Eventually we convinced a few other people that it was warm, so they came in

and immediately said that they had lost feeling in their toes. My dad and I stayed in the river for about a half hour. Then we had to go home,well the popup!
Next Stop: Grand Tetons