Day 2 of Road Trip

Gardiner, MT: Yellowstone National Park

Today, we traveled to Yellowstone.  The north entrance to the park is in Gardiner, MT.  We are spending two days in Yellowstone, so we only visited the western half of the park.  Tomorrow we will check out the east.

We stopped first at the Mammoth Hot Springs.  We were impressed by the hot water flowing from one layer of pools to another.  The golden brown color is made by microorganisms that love the hot water. 

Next, we drove all the way down to Old Faithful.  We had perfect timing.  Old Faithful erupted about 10 minutes after we got there.  

Old Faithful erupted for about 2 1/2 minutes. 

The last place we visited was the Midway Geyser Basin to see the Grand Prismatic Spring.  This is the best picture I took of the spring.  The different colors are formed by different microorganisms.  The different colored organisms like the different temperatures of water.  The water in the pool is blue and green, where it is hottest. The water escaping the sides are yellow, orange, and red, where the water is cooler.  

Here is a picture I borrowed of the Grand Prismatic Spring taken from above.  

You can clearly see the different colors. 

One of the highlights of the day was when we were delayed for road construction. There was a bison right by the road where we were stopped.  We thought the bison was dead, however it turned out he was just relaxing beside the river.