They had walkways at the bottom, so you could see the hot water trickling down the hill, and the other formations that had grown over the years from the minerals.
Looping around southwest, we saw many interesting signs by the road. The most common were “Rocks fall on cars here” and “Road collapses under cars here”. Luckily neither happened to us that day! Here is another useful one:
And, of course, there was wildlife. The tatanka, or buffalo, liked to wander across the roads, probably because they could. (Redford there is our navigator.)
Yes, there were bears, too. Some were far away, and some enjoyed the roadside travel path. Yes, that second one's a grizzly bear walking beside our truck! We could see his clawmarks on every tree beside the road, so he was just making his daily rounds, checking for foolish hikers.
The park also had some elk. They are more skittish, but they still hang out near the roads.
There were also some very cool (figuratively!) geological phenomenon often found near hot springs. Here's a mud volcano, a boiling spring, and a close-up of some bacteria that lives in the boiling spring. Life, it seems can survive and thrive in many places.
Finally, after a lunch beside Lake Yellowstone, we made it around the bottom loop to Old Faithful. This is where the bus tours stop, they have benches to hold hundreds, and a huge gift shop to one side. Old Faithful is currently erupting every 75-90 minutes, and we got to see it twice by relaxing for a while with coffee on the gift shop porch. Water is trickling into a hot spring chamber far below ground, and when there is enough of it and it's hot enough, out it comes! Both times it erupted for a good 4-5 minutes, so we had time to watch it happen.
Leaving Old Faithful, we continued back up the bottom loop to one of Theresa's most desired stops: the Prismatic Springs. This is the most colorful place in the park, due to a huge variety of bacteria growing in the hot water. Excelsior Spring is first up the walkway, and then a wonderful view of the Grand Prismatic Spring. The orange/brown colors come from thermophiles – heat-loving microorganisms that make a thin layer over the rocks. Signs say not to touch them, because they are very fragile, and maybe because the water they live in is 160 degrees F.
Finally it was time to head out. But on the way, in the northeast section, we encountered some very familiar rock formations embedded in the canyon walls. These are volcanic lava columns, looking exactly like the ones forming Devils Tower. I wonder if anyone else has ever noticed?
