US vacation part 1 - Omaha, Badlands, and Yellowstone

I got an offer to cat sit in Omaha, Nebraska for 3 months and I just couldn’t pass up free rent and a chance to spend the summer in the US.  The family I sat for was amazing and super cool!  We’d be great friends if I lived there.  One of the many benefits I have as a retired military member is the opportunity to travel the world on a space available (Space-A) basis on military aircraft.  Shannon has a Facebook page called Space A the World.   https://www.facebook.com/groups/248756535507913.  She was taking her 2 boys on a round the world adventure while her military husband was deployed.  She basically tossed me the keys, saying just make sure the cats are alive when I get back.  Included with the house was her wonderful neighbor Anna.   I fell in love with the two cats immediately, and they with me, much to Anna annoyance.  One of the cats, She-ra, is very shy.  Anna took care of her once for several days and never saw her.  I was in the house for 5 minutes and She-ra was all over me.   Liono, the other cat, didn’t have a shy bone in his body.  He’s a big ole lover boy.

I really enjoyed being in one place for 3 months.  I did a lot of hiking, some biking and met some great people through local meet up groups.  I bought a better camera, took some photography classes and went on photography outings. 

 

Speaking of photography, I found a local consignment shop looking for new artists as she relocated to a larger store.  I have rented a booth to sell my photography.  It cost a small fortune to print enough photos of all sizes to last the 3 months that I committed to.  I left town 2 days after the shop reopened, so I have no idea what will sell and what wont.  I also created a web site to sell my work directly https://throughlisaslens.zenfolio.com as well as a new Facebook page to show it off.  https://www.facebook.com/Lisasphotographyandblog.

After a fantastic trip, which she chronicled on her FB page, Shannon and the boys came home, and it was time for me to hit the road.  I had about 3 weeks before a planned trip to China.  I decided to take my camera on a road trip to some of the more picturesque national parks.  On my list were Badlands, Yellowstone, Arches, Bryce, and the Grand Canyon.  I bought some camping gear, figuring it would be cheaper camping, as well as save me hours of driving by staying in the parks themselves.  Plus, I LOVE camping and really miss it.   I knew it would be cold at night, so included in my gear were some really warm blankets.  I used them all!

 

My first stop was Badlands National Park in South Dakota.  For the entire drive in South Dakota, the scenery was pretty bland.  There wasn’t a lot of trees, just hills and open land; about what I expected.  My preferred landscape is lush green trees and snow peaked mountains, but I could appreciate the stark beauty I was seeing.  There are some amazing rock formations, with a rainbow of colors in the layers.  I got to the campground early enough to set up then go on a sunset tour.  It was so beautiful; the setting sun cast a fiery red glow against the rocks.  As the sun went down, the weather turned from warm to chilly, then cold.  I was snuggled in my super warm bed by 8pm.  I woke up during the night to wind and pouring rain.  In the morning I was pleasantly surprised to find it had stopped raining and I had no water inside.

 

I drove all over the park, taking hundreds of pictures.  It seemed like each corner I turned offered an even more spectacular view.  I saw plenty of sheep and deer and visited a colony of prairie dogs.  The fat little rodents were really fun to watch.  Some were digging new holes or cleaning house in existing ones.  They sure could shovel a lot of dirt.  Every few minutes, not matter what they were doing, they would sit up and look all around them.  As I drove by, they barked a warning and watched me closely.  The winds had picked up even more and I was thankful that I could take most pictures from my car. 

Around 3pm I headed back to my campsite for a nap.  When I pulled up, all the tents were gone and the one remaining had collapsed on one side.  Oh wait, that’s my tent!  I quickly determined there was no damage, the wind had just pushed two of the poles over.  I managed to turn the whole thing, so the wind hit the corner and not full on one side.  I also figured if I opened both windows, the wind could blow right through.  I’m not sure how strong the winds were but they were heavier than the night before.  I had just crawled onto my blow-up mattress when suddenly the whole thing collapsed.  Well, this was not good!  I see why the other tenters left and I had no choice but to do the same.  I basically threw everything into my car and took off.  The winds were too strong to even fold the blankets or roll up the tent or mattress in any orderly way.  I must say, I was very disappointed because I actually like camping in a storm, if its not too bad.  There is just something about being that close to wind and rain yet be warm and dry.

My next destination was Yellowstone and I arrived at the Madison Campground late in the afternoon.  It took no time to set everything up, I just took it out in reverse order, no unpacking required.  Like in the Badlands, once the sun went down it got cold.  So much so that my nice grilled steak dinner got cold before I could eat it.  At least we had no wind or rain.  I was nice and toasty in my bed, under 4 blankets, but it was a real challenge getting up, especially in the middle of the night. The one consolation, the bathroom had a heater blowing full blast. 

 

My first day in Yellowstone, I drove up toward Mammoth Hot Springs.  Unlike most of South Dakota, Yellowstone had a very diverse landscape.  There were huge open meadows where you could see bison, deer, and elk grazing in the distance.  There were pine forests where I glimpsed a wolf and a fox.  There were also plenty of birch trees in full autumn bloom.

I stopped at a few of the sites and saw bubbling pools of hot water or mud.  There were plenty of wildlife roaming around and I stopped to watch several herds of bison.  In one meadow, a young bull elk was wandering around bugling.  “Hey ladies here I am, where are you?”  If you’ve never heard them, go to YouTube and listen.  It’s a surprisingly high-pitched sound  for such a large animal. 

I spent quite a bit of time at Mammoth Hot springs.  There were several boardwalks where you can see around 50 different hot springs.  The Angel Terrace looks like a moonscape, with its flat white ground and stark dead tree branches randomly sticking up. 

 

The lower terrace boardwalk ends at the travertine terrace which was an amazing sight.  It looked like a combination of steps and pools of all different colors.  It’s been described as an inside out cave, but I didn’t see that at all.  It does seem like a work of art that speaks to everyone differently.

 

The trip back to the campground took me past the upper and lower falls, but I didn’t think they were too spectacular.  I was much more impressed with the large bison herd crossing the road.  That caused quite the traffic jam, not only because the huge shaggy beasts took their sweet time crossing the road but also because almost every car had both doors open with everyone standing in the road taking pictures or just watching the impressive sight.

 

The next day I took the southern loop.  My first stop was the Midway Geyser Basin, which I thought had the most beautiful of all the sights I saw.  Like other areas of the park, there was an elevated boardwalk to keep you off the thermal ground.  I noticed  there were tracks and dung from presumably from either bison or elk around the hot springs located here.  Most of the water was boiling and the ground was a thin crust above super-heated pools of water. I couldn’t imagine how any large animal could walk around and not be killed.  As I was pondering this, I heard someone point out a large indentation and say this is where the latest bison had died.  OK then. 

 

There were so many beautiful springs here, most with actively boiling, yet very colorful water.  One of the springs, Excelsior, was once the largest geyser in the world. Its temperature is a steady 199F. In 1880, the last major eruption, the super-heated water shot 300 feet in the air.  It doesn’t erupt like that anymore,  instead it’s just a spring, discharging over 4000 gallons per minute.  It produces a lot of steam, so it was a bit hard to get a good picture of, as was the case with most of the springs there.

 

The most impressive and most beautiful was the Grand Prismatic hot spring, who’s temp is 147 to 188 F.  Only New Zealand has two springs that are larger.  The Yellowstone web sites describes it best:  “Grand Prismatic sits upon a wide, spreading mound where water flows evenly on all sides forming a series of small, stair-step terraces.” “The colors begin with a deep blue center followed by pale blue. Green algae form beyond the shallow edge. Outside the scalloped rim, a band of yellow fades into orange. Red then marks the outer border. Steam often shrouds the spring which reflects the brilliant colors. Grand Prismatic discharges an estimated 560 gallons per minute.”

 

My next stop was Old Faithful, and I didn’t have to wait long.  It went off about 5 minutes after I took a seat.  It was pretty amazing sight, but to me, it was a bit underwhelming.  There was a low-key roar then a lot of belching of steam and a thin geyser of water.  Most of the other geysers I saw, and there were hundreds all over the park, mostly just produced steam.  I somehow had in my mind this massive eruption of water. 

 

On my last day, I drove down into Grand Tetons National Park.  The day was overcast, but not raining.  It was beautiful, with a lot of open meadows and  mountains in the background.  I think had the mountains been snow peaked it would have been the dramatic landscape I was looking for. 

At the end of my Yellowstone visit, I was much more impressed with the wide variety of hot springs than the geysers I saw.   The hot springs were more dramatic, with the boiling water and colorful formations.  One in particular that struck me as awe inspiring was Turquois Pool.   Despite being about 160F, the pool looked so inviting!  It had a white bottom and the coolest blue water I’ve ever seen.  Suspended mineral particles in the water also add an opalescent iridescence.  The massive amounts of steam hovering around the pool gave an indication of its heat, but it was chilly outside, and it made me think of the hot springs in Japan or Iceland that people, or monkeys, sit in in the dead of winter.  

 

 

Link to photos in Part 2