Yellowstone National Park

The gorgeous Roosevelt Arch welcomes visitors at the north entrance.

"The Yellowstone Park is something absolutely unique in the world...This Park was created and is now administered for the benefit and enjoyment of the people...it is the property of Uncle Sam and therefore of us all." ~President Theodore Roosevelt, 1903

Let me just say...this is THE strangest place on earth...you could seriously film a sci-fi alien movie here! The landscape is like nothing I have ever seen. I wonder what the Indians must have thought of this unusual place? Old Faithful faithfully blows approximately every 90 minutes, give or take 10 minutes....he used to be more faithful but earthquakes have altered his clock! Wildlife is abundant in the park: #1 on the wish list was a bear....#2 was a moose! This big 'ol guy had quite the following of curious tourists. The Ranger told us that THE most dangerous animal in the park is a momma moose with her baby! This crazy thing is called The Dragons Mouth...it steams, belches & sloshes 170 degree steel grey water and reeks of sulphur. This is a pool of BOILING mud....see what I mean about a sci-fi movie! Can't you see it now: Arnold Schwarzenegger rescuing some lady from certain death??? Crazy shit, I tell ya! Yet another example of strangeness : this is not snow, people!

Elk Daddy I walked around certain that the entire place was sure to blow clean off the map! Everywhere you look there is steam rising from the earth. Grandma & Grandpa G. took the family to Yellowstone....Dad recalled Grandpa G. being uneasy and leery the whole thing would blow! Interesting to note that Yellowstone still exists 50 years later! This is one of the thermal pools...the color depends on which minerals are in the pool...we saw some of the most intense blue, green, yellow colors. This pool was bubbling sulphur & was intensely stinky! Smelled like high school science class! One animal in abundance was the bison...often a traffic jam in the park was the result of the herd crossing the road. At one stop we were able to watch a group swim across the river & observe a spunky calf as he frolicked about, jumping & bucking & kicking!