Yellowstone

I'll probably be back to Yellowstone. I missed a lot because I was on a direct path through the park and did not get to do the entire loop. I missed the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

The scenery is fabulous. And for the most part, the RVs that had me so nervous were pretty generous with room when passing. Most of them. Old Faithful was cool to see. I got there right when the geyser was about to erupt. Great timing. Everything else about it was a zoo. There were a zillion people there. The parking lot looked more like Disney and less like a National Park. It was nuts.


I am most fascinated by the thermal springs in Yellowstone. Half of the world's geothermal features are in Yellowstone. The pools can be scalding hot but spectacularly diverse. Some are just puddles of mud. Some small and others large. When you look at the pictures and see all the vivid colors, you are looking at bacteria colonies that thrive in the heat. They are called "thermophiles".




I camped the night at Grant Village. It was a nice campground. They were packed; I shared a site with two French guys who were hitchhiking. They were funny. At a nice dinner in the restaurant there that had a terrific view of Yellowstone Lake. There was a storm on the lake that eventually got to us at camp that night.


I think Yellowstone could be a much better place. There's too much traffic. I bet there would be more animal sightings if there were fewer vehicles. Denali National Park in Alaska has no private vehicles (except for a special few that win a lottery drawing each year). Every visitor into Denali has to buy a ticket on a National Park bus. I thought it was great. Each bus also had a guide or ranger who knew park history, ecology and where to find wildlife. What's cool is that on many buses you could get off where ever you wanted. When you wanted to move on, you just flagged another green bus. Since Yellowstone is essentially a loop, this could work.