Day 13 Arco ID to Livingston MT
Day 13 - 29 June 2006 - Thursday
--- Starting in Arco, Idaho ---
We woke, and started driving toward Yellowstone. The scenery
was dotted with potato barns. We stopped briefly
in Idaho Falls and I mailed most of my postcards. We crossed
the Snake River yet again, and then took back roads up and to the
other side of the Grand Tetons.
--- Entering Wyoming ---
We arrived at Grand Teton National
Park. The park was crowded, and we did not do much more than
drive through. Here are the Tetons, some of the newest mountains
in America:
Here they are reflected in Jackson Lake:
We finally parted company with the Snake River.
We drove briefly through the
John D Rockefeller Jr Memorial Parkway and then into
Yellowstone National Park
We crossed the continental divide, bringing us back into the
Atlantic Ocean drainage basin. We stopped
at the West Thumb Geyser Basin:
There are numerous hot springs and geysers here. See also
our trip report from the
last time Kristina and I were here. Here's a pretty
green hot spring:
And here's another pretty hot spring:
We then drove on, crossing the continental divide back to the Pacific
then back permanently to the Atlantic. We stopped at the Old Faithful
area, and found out the time of the next eruption. We didn't have
much time before that happened, so we quickly ran errands in the area.
I got very lost trying to find the post office, but eventually found
it and made it back in time to see Old Faithful do its thing:
We then walked around the area looking at hot springs. We only had
one day here, so we walked pretty quickly. We walked past Castle
Geyser:
There was a 3 hour window of when it could erupt, so we didn't stay.
But not long after we passed by it erupted:
It was very impressive. Most of the geysers at Yellowstone are more
impressive than Old Faithful; they are just harder to predict. This
particular geyser erupted for more than 20 minutes.
We then moved on, stopping to see my favorite hot spring, Sapphire Pool:
Continue on to the second part of day 13