Recommended
music for entering Yellowstone National Park includes the Last
of the Mohicans soundtrack. The peaks raise up, ragged, then rounded.
Inspiring.
Before
setting up camp at Madison, we had our first Large Animal Sighting: Elk hanging
out in the river. Sometimes we laugh at the other tourists sneaking up for
a photograph of the bounders, but more often we're right there with them.
We
set up camp (finding that we had packed the wrong tent!!) and headed into
the park to do the geyser watch. We caught Daisy erupting and I tried to take
video with the digital camera - didn't work very well, but I learned more
about this Olympus camera - and about how far the wind blows erupting water.
Walking back down the boardwalk in the dim, post-sunset evening, we were startled when a large-racked elk crossed the boardwalk not 20 feet behind us. Dinner time at the Old Faithful cafeteria was filling, if not elegant, and we each snuck out with extra parmesan and mustard packets for future meals. Back to camp to sleep, but the next morning we packed up while the rest of the camp was still snoring.
We
headed back up towards the middle basin, where Scott wanted to shoot pools.
They steamed in the early morning chill. Morning Glory pool was in the upper
basin trail system, but near the middle basin. We unshipped the bicycles and
rode up to the pool on one of the few legal bike trails. Geysers sputtered
across the creek, and we saw fresh bison tracks on the trail - be very careful
as you round the corners, some large boulder may snort at you.
( insert bisoninfield here)
After shooting the pool, another group told us that Riverside was about to blow, so we went to watch that as well. Rita saw an oriental couple who gave their camera to their toddler, who took their picture in front of the blowing geyser - guess they start them young. We rode up to another pool, then hiked the bikes back to the highway, as we were on a no-bike section of trail. We carried them so as to not leave telltale tracks (bikers have enough of a bad rep), and got some odd looks from fellow trail users.
(insert movie here)