We made the short drive from Grand Teton to Yellowstone National Park along the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Memorial Parkway.  We were so excited.  Yellowstone was the much anticipated highlight of our summer plans.  Established in 1872, Yellowstone is the world’s first national park.  Of the 2.2 million acres, 80% is forest, 15% is grassland and 5% is water.  Ninety-six percent of the park is in Wyoming with 3% in Montana and 1% in Idaho.

Yellowstone is HUGE with:

• five entrances into the park
• ten visitor or information centers
• three medical clinics
• six gas stations
• seven general stores
• five hotels or lodges
• twelve campgrounds
• and numerous restaurants and gift shops

We had camping reservations at several campgrounds throughout the park which we had to make a year in advance.  To say it is a popular tourist destination is an understatement!  Our first reservation was at Grant Campground and we were lucky to be given a site overlooking West Thumb Lake which is connected to Yellowstone Lake.  This is the largest lake in Yellowstone National Park and is beautiful.

Our time in this area of southern Yellowstone centered around what may be the most famous part of Yellowstone, its geysers.

Our first stop of course was to see Old Faithful.  We got up extra early to get a head start on the mobs of tourists.  Each year over three million people visit this park.  Yellowstone is very crowded in July so it is best not to come unless you have plenty of time AND patience.  Old Faithful is the most famous attraction in Yellowstone, so named because it faithfully erupts about every 60 to 90 minutes, spewing 8,400 gallons of steaming hot water up to 180 feet into the air.  It is one of the most predictable geysers on earth.  There are benches around the base of Old Faithful where crowds gather to sit, wait and watch the eruption.  The Visitors Center has a list of several geysers and the times they are predicted to erupt so you know what time to head to each area to watch the eruptions.  The time of some, like Old Faithful, can be easily predicted within ten minutes.  Others can be predicted plus or minus 90 minutes while others are very unpredictable.

Yellowstone is home to more geysers than any other place on earth and is one of the world’s most active geothermal areas.  Within the park are hundreds of geysers, hot springs, mud pots and steam vents.  This is because the park sits atop an enormous “supervolcano” and the immense heat from the underground magma powers the geysers.  The volcano last erupted 640,000 years ago and shows no signs of erupting anytime soon. Water from precipitation seeps into the ground, meeting the superheated earth near the underground magma chamber.  Tremendous pressure builds up until the water is forced back to the surface.  Some geysers like Old Faithful have their own underground “plumbing systems” and erupt at predictable intervals.  Other geysers share plumbing “pipes” with adjacent geysers and erupt more sporadically.

We drove around the West Thumb and Upper Geyser Basins with a variety of geysers, hot springs and bubbling mudpots.  There are more than 150 spouters within a square mile area just in the Upper Geyser Basin alone.  The boardwalk led us around to areas such as the Fishing Cone where years ago fishermen could fish in the lake and then swing around and place the fish in the boiling water of the Fishing Cone to be cooked.  This is no longer allowed.  We saw the colored Paint Pots and the deep blue Abyss Pool.

In the Lower Geyser Basin we drove the Firehole Lake Drive and saw the beautiful multi colored Fountain Paint Pots.

We drove by the White Dome Geyser and as we pulled into the small parking lot a lady leaned out of her car window and told Bill the geyser would go off in about twenty minutes.  Bill spread the word and a small crowd gathered on the boardwalk.  As twenty minutes passed with no eruption we began to wonder if the lady had been mistaken.  Suddenly the geyser erupted, spraying us with cool water.  We were surprised since we expected the water to be warm.  It was a really nice eruption to see and we were really glad we had waited.

The Midway Geyser Basin is known as Hell’s Half Acre where the basin’s hot water gushes into the Firehole River.  The Grand Prismatic Spring is located here, which at 370 feet across and 125 feet deep is the largest hot spring in the United States.  The many colors come from light refraction, mineral particles and heat loving microorganisms called thermophiles.  Hot springs are similar to geysers except they do not have the constrictions in their “plumbing” so water does not reach the temperature needed to set off an eruption.  Around all the thermal areas are really nice boardwalks.  The ground around the boardwalks is very unstable and in many cases consists of bubbling hot water which can exceed a surface boiling point of 199 degrees F. as well as steaming mudpots.  Some of the boardwalks could be crowded and at times I was uneasy as tourists were busy looking instead of watching where they were going.  I sure didn’t want to be knocked off one of those boardwalks!  Most annoying were the tourists walking around with umbrellas to protect themselves from the sun.  Haven’t they heard of hats and sunscreen?  This is what happens to tourists who don’t heed the warnings to stay on the boardwalk.  They disappear and are never seen again!

We also enjoyed seeing bubbling mudpots and steaming fumeroles.  Mudpots occur in places where microorganisms help convert hydrogen sulfide into sulfuric acid which dissolves surrounding rock into clay.  The clay mixes with rising steam and groundwater to form mud of different colors and consistency.

Fumeroles is a vent in the Earth’s crust.  Groundwater comes in contact with hot rocks underground and turns to steam.  The steam rushes up through cracks and fissures and out the vent, sometimes with enough force to create a loud hiss or roar.

here are two videos ; http://youtu.be/ra5QVkWhMhc

https://youtu.be/zEiO-yCk-tU

It seems everywhere we drove in Yellowstone had steam rising, constantly amazing us.

We left the Mount Rushmore Black Hills area and traveled to Badlands National Park for two nights of dry camping in the park. What a beautiful view of the grasslands we had from our front door with a buffalo as our camp host. He was there the entire time, grazing and paying no attention to everyone camping. Badlands National Park is made up of 244,000 acres with the largest expanse of protected prairie ecosystem in the National Park system.

The Lakota Indians called the area “land bad” and French fur trappers referred to the area as “bad land to cross.”. While It is an area of peaks and valleys, wide prairies and wide extremes of weather and appears formidable, much of the land is level, fertile and covered with grasses. The land was homesteaded years ago with many ranchers’ descendants still living on the land with ranches of cattle and sheep. The livestock feed on the native grasses and wheat is often grown.

This area was once sea level and volcanic activity pushed up the ocean floor leaving marshy plains.  For approximately 30 million years layers of mud, sand and gravel were deposited. Prehistoric animals roaming the area died and were buried beneath the river sediments. The area is known today as being a rich source of fossils. About one to four million years ago erosion began to outpace the deposits, leaving colorful spires and formations. The movie at the visitors center said the formations are eroding at the rate of an inch a year!

The earliest people were mammoth hunters who came to the area over 11,000 years ago followed by nomadic tribes. By the mid 18th century the Lakota (Sioux) were present and used horses from the Spaniards. French fur trappers were the first Europeans followed by soldiers, miners, farmers and homesteaders. After 40 years of struggle culminating in the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890 the Lakota were confined to reservations.

Our first night a storm came up. We first noticed the lightning while taking an evening walk. As the night went on the lightning increased to an explosion of light, a constant light show we had never seen the likes of. Our weather system clocked wind gusts of 50 mph followed by rain and hail and we were really rocked in the RV. The most frightening thing was we were in the middle of nowhere with no place to go for shelter. We could not follow the storm’s progress on TV or radio like we did in Denver. We both have weather alerts on our phones and both phones were going crazy.  We watched the intense center of the storm pass fifteen miles north of our campground by using a radar weather app.

There is nothing quite like having your phone saying you are in a life threatening situation and should seek shelter and having no place to go! The next day a worker at the visitors center told us it was one of the worst storms he had seen and there had been tornado clouds above us. Some other tourists told us two hours to our south there were several semi trucks turned on their sides by the wind.

The view out our front door with our Buffalo host far right

The next day we drove the Badlands Loop Road, marveling at the scenery before us. The area reminded us somewhat of the Painted Desert in Arizona but not as colorful. The views and rock formations were magnificent. We saw bison, mule deer, a coyote and many prairie dogs. There is a very nice visitors center with a movie and exhibits about the area.

We were relieved not to have another bad storm during the evening but we were awakened during the night by a thunderstorm with heavy rain. Thankfully it did not include wind and hail.

We left the campground early the next morning since we had a couple places to visit near the small town of Wall.

The first was the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site. During the Cold War the Ellsworth Air Force Base located nearby was one of the key facilities whose mission was to install the launch facilities in the 1960s, maintain and launch the Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM). Two of the ICBM sites have been preserved. Launch Control Facility “Delta One” has a guided tour which requires a free ticket and “Delta Nine” missile silo has a self guided tour. The guided tour can only accommodate 72 people a day and the tickets are usually all given out before 8:00 AM each morning. We toured the excellent visitors center with very informative displays and then drove to the site of the self guided tour. Under the STrategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) in 1991, the U.S. and U.S.S.R. began to reduce their stockpiles of nuclear arms. Both countries agreed to preserved one missile to preserve the history and significance of the Cold War. The missile is there without the warhead and the door is welded half open. There are no longer any missile silos in South Dakota.

We stopped for lunch at Wall Drug, a huge tourist trap located in Wall, SD where everything under the sun with a western theme is sold. I did get some cute pictures of Bill!

We ended the day with a stop at the “Wounded Knee: The Museum”. This Museum documented in detail through exhibits and photos  the events leading to the massacre, the capture by the 7th Calvary,  the massacre of 300 Lakota men, women and children on December 29, 1890, and its aftereffects. It was heartbreaking.  The actual site of the massacre is located several hours away near the Nebraska and South Dakota border.

After leaving Wall we drove an hour to Black Hawk outside of Rapid City for a two night stay so we could get the oil changed and tires rotated on the RV.