Wonderful Wyoming, Part 2

Warning: This will be lengthy.

This will be lengthy because Yellowstone is enormous.

Enormous, and really remarkable. It's so crazy that so many unique features and creatures reside in one (gigantic) park. The sulphur / rotten egg smell does wear on one after a while (and one also wonders if one is loosing years off his or her life breathing it in) but the geysers and colorful springs are worth the shorter life expectancy:

Old Faithful

Grand Prismatic Spring

 

Mammoth Hot Springs

I had to include this video of an erupting geyser. We were simply walking by when it began to erupt. We couldn't get over its power as it kept going and going (for about 5 straight minutes - but fear not, the video is only 30 seconds), shooting all that water straight up in the air, against gravity, with such consistent force.

The wildlife keeps Yellowstone interesting in between the sights (which can be quite a drive at times.) Our first day in Yellowstone we enjoyed the Upper and Midway Geyser Basins (most of the pictures above are from those areas) but we hadn't seen any wildlife. As we were leaving the park, we ran into traffic miles from the exit. For more than 30 minutes we crawled along, wondering what in the world was causing the hold up. We figured everyone in the entire park decided to exit through the same way at the same time. Either that, or a wreck. But nope, it was this little guy:

We were ecstatic! We were so glad the traffic was caused by him instead of something boring. We thought, what luck we must have to see such a rare creature on our first day in Yellowstone!

Hard to see, but those teeny brown dots on the right are more Bison.

...Turns out, not so rare. What we first rejoiced over causing traffic became somewhat of a nuisance. Bison love to utilize the road. And they always have right-of-way. As for other wildlife, Jimmy really had his hopes up to see a grizzly, and on the last day we did! We didn't get great pictures, but it was really exciting:

We also saw a black bear. We weren't able to get pictures though. Just take our word for it. It happened. Ok?

Just outside of the north entrance to Yellowstone in a little town, we ran into these guys:

5 in all!

The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone was simply beautiful. It warrants a national park by itself.

"O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom You made them all; the earth is full of Your creatures." - Psalm 104:24

Yellowstone also has so much history, being the first National Park and all. When we began planning this trip we watched Ken Burn's documentary series of the National Parks (entitled, The National Parks: America's Best Idea -- it is on Netflix. It's fantastic!) and it has really added so much to our trip to know the story behind the parks and all the work that went into preserving these areas. We made our final exit out of the park through the historic Roosevelt Arch:

"For the benefit and enjoyment of the people."