Spring In Yellowstone: Along the Way

Lewis Falls

I said I had one last one to do.  We've visited the upper and lower loops and I had a few pictures of the places in Yellowstone.  Some are along the main road, some by the differences and one or two might actually be outside the park, I'll let you know if that's the case! :)

Spring in Yellowstone: Upper Loop

Avalanche Peak

It's an early spring in Minnesota, but I haven't the time or the weather to do a good photowalk around the parks.  I have plans for that later this week of the weather holds.  But I had a sudden urge to go on a walk through Yellowstone in the spring.  My spring was in 2009.  From some of the pictures, there doesn't look to be much of a difference between winter and early spring in Yellowstone.  In fact, but there is!  It's a much less amount of snow and things are starting to thaw!  Oh and bears!!

Painted Bison of West Yellowstone

Native Jewel Pony

 I have a painted pony statuette.  I got it a few years ago in a gift shop at old faithful, it is beautiful.  It is the Native Jewel Pony.  There were 150 life-size ponies painted across New Mexico.  Well, West Yellowstone had a similar idea, with their own twist.  Bison are very common so they used this and created several Painted Bison and calves throughout the stores of West.  They had them all on display in 2009.

My Old Faithful Moment

Old Faithful

Ok, so I felt that last one was a bit somber, or maybe too personal, I don't know.  It just didn't hate the tone that I like to maintain in this.  Maybe it was a wistfulness.  But lets move on to something I never thought I'd fall for.  Geysers.  Sure like everyone you see it and you go "oooh" "ahhh", but after awhile it is like ehh, whatever.  But then you see one you never seen before, or and old classic in a different light and all of a sudden you are "ohhing" and "ahhing" again.  It is a pretty neat cycle.

Great Fountain

Castle

Cliff

Old Faithful from Observation Point

So this totally happened to me.  I was all jaded on old Faithful, maybe it was more of an act than I let on.  Hell I don't even think I'd been in the Park for more than a season or two at that time but it is kinda a park thing, unless you are geyser gazer then you are like meh old faithful.  I'd seen it several times by then and honestly as far as geyser go it is average.  Everything about it is average, it is not oldest, newest, tallest, shortest, longest, quickest, most frequent, but it is the most known.  And it is centrally located and it does that every 90 minutes give or take 10 thing.  Which makes it popular.  So as I was saying I had my "oooh" "aaah" moment one night.  It was a full moon.  A big one that totes lit up the entire basin, and to see Old Faithful in the moonlight like that was breathtaking.

Old Faithful again

Old Faithful in Winter

Beehive (I think)

So there you have it my old faithful moment.  Don't get me wrong, I still don't go out of my way to see it when I am in the park, if you miss it you miss it... chances are it will erupt again sometime in the next two hours.  The winter eruptions are kinda the same way.  They are neat to see because of all the steam and the fact that they sometimes freeze before the geyser water hits the ground.  Hosting one morning, all you could see was steam after Old Faithful erupted- crazy!  I saw Grand Geyser a few times in the winter, talk about amazing.  Somethings never get old.

Exiled in Paradise

  I've had Yellowstone on my mind lately.  Probably because I am going to be in a different National Park for the summer months.  It is kinda a surreal feeling knowing that I might be over Yellowstone.  I have no desire to go back except maybe for a visit.  Sure I miss my Yellowstone peeps and I don't have the same circle of people here in Minnesota... (I am working on that slowly).  But sometimes you just have to move on.  So I figured with it on my mind, knowing how beautiful the spring in Yellowstone is, I'd give The Park some attention.




So as I mentioned I spent the majority of my Yellowstone life at Lake, but I did one summer in exile (as I sometimes grudgingly refer to it) at Old Faithful.  I had to work at Old Faithful, I needed to put the demons of my previous summer to rest.  My previous summer was very odd, it was both wonderful and horrible.  I was supposed to be back at lake, but I honestly couldn't do it, I was filled with dread just thinking of it.  I had managed the year before, and that summer would have been going back as a cook (which is always a little strange).  I pre-seasoned at the Old Faithful Lodge and I honestly really liked it.  And they needed cafe cooks, and I didn't want to go to lake, so I burned a bridge and stayed.  And thus became an exile (self imposed, but still exiled)




I had an awesome roommate, Amanda, she was the EDR cook and a loud Texan.  And she put up with me for several months, it was tense at times, but that friendship is pretty damn strong still.  We did a lot together, I dragged her many places.  I spent a lot of time with another friend (at the time anyways) we both were in "exile".  We'd visit lake a lot, having many friends there.  I was up at lake every weekend.  It was, if you will, a great place to visit.  The nice thing was, you knew everyone and everything, but were completely removed from the drama... and if there is one thing lake knows it is drama!


But anyways, I loved my Old Faithful Exile Summer.  It was funny seeing how it changed over the season.  Having wintered there, it was covered in snow.  Then the pre-season it wasn't.  It was a little disorenting, but you firgue it out.  The funny thing was, you still kinda think that your Snow Lodge people are there, but the summer crew is so different that it kinda shocks you.  But you get used to it, you get used to the crowds, you the noise, the sulfer, and you learn tricks.  And you find yourself waiting hours for a geyser.  You almost become an old faithful person, but deep down you still belong to lake.  And it was that exile that led me back to lake for the last summer.




This post wasn't as fun as I was hoping--- but I guess it had to be written.  So I promise the next one will have more pictures and a good chance for some geyser action!  Hmm boy!

Twisty Turns: Me and the Beartooth

The Beartooth!

In an effort to blog a bit.  I am gonna try to write a touch on some of the places I've been.  So as I might have mentioned ad nauseum I lived for 5ish years in Yellowstone National Park.  While in the park I had the privileged of visiting many of the country's gorgeous places.  Once of which is not that far from the Northeast entrance of Yellowstone.  The Beartooth Pass.

The beartooth pass links Yellowstone (Via Cooke City MT) to Red Lodge/Billings area MT.  It is only open from late May to ate October and is often called "the most beautiful drive in America".  It winds through Montana and Wyoming at an elevation of 10,947 ft.  (Really, really, really freakin high)

 

I've been on it several times over the course of my life, but have only driven it twice.  I must have been around age 10 when we first crossed it.  We camped a lot and my dad loves to drive through the mountains.  I am a little bit afraid of heights (and by a little bit I mean a lot).  I can't say I enjoyed the ride.  My siblings tried to scare the tar out of me.  My dad didn't help cause he kinda liked to freak us all out driving with out his hands on the wheel and whatnot.
 

   

But it was beautiful and there is almost always snow.  So even though it scares me silly, I love it.  Once you are up then it is the best place in the world, it's getting there that is the challenge.  The Red Lodge side is the scary side in my opinion.  Switchbacks galore.  Pretty much the entire way down.  The Yellowstone side is a little more sloped- less up and down..  It might be just my perception, but it works for me.  There is a little gas station and gift shop on the top, closer to the Yellowstone side called the Top of the World. It is pretty true, there are places on the top of the range that you feel like you are higher than anything else.

 

I drove it the first time in 2007 with my brother Bobby.  We didn't go all the way down the Red Lodge side, just as far as the overlook, because it is a days drive from where we lived in Yellowstone.  It was nerve racking, it is a fast road, even if you are trying to stay slow.  The nature of the beast an all. I felt good afterwards, I had conquered the Beartooth.

 

Two years later my friend Silke and I drove it.  She had never been over it.  We went to the overlook and back.  I could drive anything at this point.  The Beartooth was a stepping stone.  Hell, Yellowstone was, there are tons of mountains there that I once couldn't drive.  I've driven steeper, higher, twister roads since then.  I love them, I crave them, but for the most part, only if I am driving... it is a control issue.

Wild Thing: Creepy Crawlies

Velvet Ants

 
Going through my pictures I have found a bunch of bugs.  I am not a huge bug person, they are kinda creepy.  Sometimes they are interesting and like to get pictures of them.  Well so long as they are behind glass... I like them that way.  Yeah, I am a girl... what of it!

Some sort of Malaysian Beetle

Scorpion

Grasshopper from the Grand Canyon

Grasshopper from Malaysia

Black Widow

So I have a bad habit of taking pictures of flowers that have bugs on them.  They are really cool and I never notice the bugs.  I am trying to figure out how this happens.  Cause I am sure if I tried I would never manage it.  It is kinda funny.  And this is the only one I can find that is any good.  Pretty sure I've lost several over the years.

Wild Thing: Pelicans

So back to Monterrey with you blog!  I can't stay away from the coast it would seem.  Maybe I need to travel more. My posts seem to be Monterrey...Yellowstone...Yellowstone...Niagara...Monterrey....you get the picture... So Pelicans...yeah they're pretty flippin' cool.  And there are tons of them.  (I've seen 'em in Yellowstone too)  I don't know a lot about them as birdies.  But I kinda like them!

So the Monterrey pelicans were like birds possessed.  They were always attacking the fishies.  Diving down to the water.  I'd be walking along, or sitting and enjoying the view and then splash.  I'd look up and see nothing, then go back to what I was doing and splash splash... look up nothing.  It took a while, but finally I caught on to what they were doing... tricksy little birds.

The ones in yellowstone probably do the same thing, but I never saw them do that.  They were usually flying or sitting on the water, doing lame bird things.  I saw some once that were bobbing for fishies.  But that is as close as it gets.

Wild Thing: Bison Bison

 Bison (Bison) or more commonly the buffalo... Buffalo, buffalo buffalo, I like them, I really do, but sometimes not so  much.  Part of that comes from the Yellowstone life.  Bison are so common that you almost stop seeing them.  Except of course when they are laying right in your path or surrounding your car during the rut.

I go back and forth on my bison opinions.  I love them, I hate them, they are adorable, annoying.  The babies are adorable, the big bulls can be ugly... I am truly conflicted.  The more removed I am from Yellowstone, I more I remember them fondly.  But there were times when I truly cursed their existence--well, at least cursed the fact that I had to sit in my car for almost an hour while tourists were just asking to be gored.

Now that I am out of the park, I get excited when I see them... and trust me this wasn't the case for many years.  They are big and kinda scary.  It may be silly but I would talk to them whenever I would encounter one.  Cause the last thing I wanted to do was startle the big guy and a goring was the last thing on my mine.  Bison are funny, because they look so docile and uninterested.  Not the case...they might be docile, but the notice everything and when they don't that is the when bad things happen...





But at the end of the day, I like the big lugs.  The are fun to look at when the huge herds are together, running down the roads and through the valleys.  I can only imagine how amazing it would have been to see the plains covered in bison as far as the eyes could see.  Wow!