7-02 Monday - Geysers!!!

In case you guys haven't figured out what I'm doing, I've been writing entries for the day every night on this road trip to the west. Unfortunately, internet hasn't been discovered in many of these areas, and so when you do get entries, there will probably be a whole bunch. For instance, tomorrow, Tuesday, I hope to be able to upload the entry, plus like the last 3. Gieseler, if you read this, get in touch with the Best Western that is in the town just west of Yellowstone. They're provider is terrible and they need a new one.

So today, I'm going to work my way backwards. We just arrived in a lodge area in the Grand Teton National Park. We're right on the edge of the lake of which the mountains are directly on the other side. This place is beautiful. And rumor has it its chock full of cool animals, aka bears. I have high hopes for tomorrow.

Before the last thing we did before leaving Yellowstone was go down to Yellowstone Lake. Ok, so think of the layout this way: Yellowstone Nat Park and Grand Tetons Nat Park border each other, Yellowstone is on the north and Grand Tetons are to the south. The Yellowstone Lake is in the southern part of Yellowstone, and was on our way out the door. After we left the lake it was just another 30 or so minutes to here. I really hope I remember to show you guys a map.

Pretty much the rest of today (morning and afternoon) was spent going around to the many geysers and pools and springs. They're pretty much all the same thing, just varying degrees of intensity. Some place deep underground, or maybe not so deep, I'm just making this up, there's a lot of heat because Yellowstone is so active (its a volcano). This heat gets to the water and sends it up to the surface, cause its hot and creates a lot of pressure. The big difference, that I see anyway, is that a geyser shoots into the air whenever a lot of pressure has built up (usually so much so that the water turns to steam and violence ensues), while a spring more trickles the water to the surface thru wider vents.

So yes, we saw lots of these things. I kinda feel like after you've seen one, you've seen a bunch (but not all). But it is still very cools. Of course we saw Old Faithful, twice actually. And there were a number of other geysers. I think the coolest geyser we saw was on Sunday though. I think it was called the Jet Geyser, but I could be wrong. Anyway, I think we saw it go off by chance (these things can be pretty random, Old Faithful is the exception, which is why its famous), and the board walk was really close to the geyser so we got a great view of it.

One thing I've definitely confirmed about Yellowstone is that it is an amusement park. See pictures.

Today was definitely a pretty nice day. Weather wise and other wise. Actually, we've been having really great weather since the Badlands. And seeing a two deer cross right in front of me, while I was not in a car and walking back to the cabin we're staying in, gives me good hope for tomorrow.