I have to start this story not on our first day in the park, but on our travel day. You'd think they'd be the same day, but that wasn't the case. The morning of our flight we hopped on a train and arrived early at the airport. After having to explain to the TSA agents why the name on my boarding pass was different from that on my driver's license (long story), we passed through the metal detectors and ran into a problem. Our flight to Minneapolis was not showing on the monitors. I figured maybe it was because we were running early, but decided it wouldn't hurt to check with a gate agent. We walked up to a random gate and asked to confirm the gate for our flight since it wasn't on the list. The agent typed on the computer, then said, "It's been canceled." Um, what? She couldn't give us an explanation, but looked at rebooking our first leg. Unfortunately, we had to wait an hour and a half, therefore missing our connection, which got us rerouted onto a flight to Salt Lake City instead of Bozeman, MT. So essentially adding an extra leg to our trip and bumping back our arrival time by six hours.
Driving to the park after dark was bad enough, but it wasn't over. We get to Salt Lake City to find our flight to Bozeman delayed due to low visibility. Eventually we get on board and take off, only to be a couple hundred feet off the landing strip in Bozeman and do a go-around. (The visibility was really bad, and we weren't coming in at the right point in the runway.) We sat on the tarmac in Helena while the pilots tried to find out if we can get into Bozeman. We were told we have two options: 1) Stay on the plane while we try once more for Bozeman, but if we can't land, we go back to Salt Lake City or 2) Get off in Helena and drive to Bozeman. Then we're promptly told there are three rental car companies in Helena. Two don't have attendants and the third doesn't have any rental cars. Seeing as how we really only had one option, we crossed our fingers. There was much applause when we finally touched down at the correct destination.
At this point it was well past dinner time, but we stuck with our plan of obtaining food supplies for breakfast and lunch in the parks, then ate dinner before driving two hours to Yellowstone. Our arrival was subdued as it was pitch black dark and we couldn't see any of the scenery. However, we could see 1.7 million more stars than are visible in Chicago. (Maybe 1.8 million. It's easy to lose count.)
The next morning we woke up early, eager to actually start our vacation. The first morning was spent at Mammoth Hot Springs. Some fun facts for those of you who are like me:
- Mammoth Hot Springs is a series of terraces down which hot, mineral-rich water trickles.
- Once at the surface, the carbon dioxide evaporates and causes lime to precipitate out
- The springs are constantly changing - more than two tons of calcium carbonate accumulates each day
- Elk seem to like the warm air and frequent the surrounding area
On to the pictures! This is the Liberty Cap, a 37-foot-tall dormant spring. (It's named for its faint similarity to the caps worn in the French Revolution. Though as our guidebook says, you may think it shows a striking similarity to something else a bit more - shall we say - masculine.)
One of the multi-colored terraces.
The view from above one area. (Love the mountains in the distance!)
My trusty assistant warms up his hands.
The cold air made the steam look mysterious.
Different colors mean different types of algae.
It looks like molten lava, but it's just algae.
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GREAT pictures! Looks like you had an awesome vacation!
ReplyDeleteThanks! It was awesome! More installments to come! :)
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