Vince's Trans-continental Trip
21 May 2005 - Saturday (Continued)
After leaving Mammoth Hot Springs we retraced our way back to the
lower loop, and then continued around. Our next stop:
The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.
Here is a picture of the Grand Canyon. Notice the yellow rocks, from
which Yellowstone gets its name. The river at the bottom is the
Yellowstone River, which eventually empties into the Mississippi via
the Missouri.
Disturbingly the vantage point we were on used to be much larger; most
of it collapsed into the canyon during an earthquake in the 1970s. There
were a lot of little notes like that around the park; most commonly it
was geysers starting or stopping due to earthquakes. And of course,
as you might have heard recently in the news, Yellowstone is the Caldera
of a giant Volcano that erupts around every 600,000 years, and it is overdue
for an eruption...
It was getting late at this point, late enough that Kristina couldn't
get her national park passport stamped. In Yellowstone each little area
had its own stamp. We could however go down a very beat-up road and
see the Lower Falls:
We then drove a bit to see the falls above it, aptly named the Upper Falls:
We did not venture further down the road to see Artist point.
We got back on the loop road, following the Yellowstone River which is very
flat and placid remarkably close upstream to the falls and canyon. We avoided
people who randomly stopped their cars whenever they saw a hint of wildlife;
they were more dangerous than the wildlife itself was.
On this last leg of the loop there were some more thermal features.
Here is the Sulfur Cauldron:
And here nearby was a feature called he Dragon's Mouth, as the water
would swish around and make ominous grumbling noises.
And after this, we had completed the loop road, but it was getting late.
So we re-drove the bottom part of the loop, and headed out toward the South
Gate. We passed over the Continental Divide one final time,
and drove along Lewis Lake which was still frozen. We caught Moose Falls
out of the corners of our eyes, and then left the park.
There is an unexpected park right outside of Yellowstone:
John D. Rockefeller Jr. Memorial Park.
This is not one you hear much about. It is mainly the space between
Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons.
After Rockefeller Park, we arrived at the
Grand Tetons.
These are the newest mountains in North America, and are quite pointy.
The view was pretty, but we did not stop to hike around much. I did
take this panorama shot. The largest mountain is Mount Moran, and it has a
glacier on it (that's hard to make out because there's still winter snow).
We left the park, and after an eventful day ended our journey at the Motel 6
in Jackson, Wyoming, near the famous Ski Resort. The hotel clerk looked like
Santa Claus.
304 Miles - Arrived Jackson, Wyoming
Day 3 - 340 Miles Traveled, 3001 Miles Total
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