Day 30: These Sulfur Fumes are Making Me Nauseous

Yellowstone the second time around was great! We decided to focus our energy on the North West side of the park. This area includes Mammoth Springs and Norris Geyser Basin. Both of which we explored thoroughly. The Norris Basin is really neat it does not have many of the famous ones. Instead those are found in the south west Yellowstone, however they are still amazing things. There are many small geysers and tons of springs thermal vents. The two that stick out the most to me is Vixen, and Steamboat. Steam boat Geyser erupts has small eruptions regularly, but every once in a while it releases a big one. That is much taller than Old Faithful and lasts about 24 hours. The problem being that every once and a while is either 4 days or 50 years from its previous eruption. The last time it went off big time was May 23 3005 so it was easy to say that we were not going to see it happen. What we did see was Vixen Geyser go up.

This geyser does not have any special story like Steamboat does, instead its a small and deep geyser that we saw erupt. It started very small with little water reaching the surface From its pit and then it got a little higher and then some more until it reached about my height and then stopped. Now this wasn't in one huge spray it was in spurts. Alie and I thought it was cool because we were the only ones around when it did it. I got some pictures and video. I will not be able to post the video but pictures for sure.

We then traveled to Mammoth springs and saw the types of geological formations called terraces. These things are limestone deposits that build up and form little terraces for a lack of a better word on the ground where the hot water runs and falls. The lime stone deposits in one place and as it grows higher the water runs around it and over it making them longer. The flows originate in these small mounds where the springs are located and runs a long way down until it reaches the valley.

This section of the park used to be much more colorful then it is now. When a lot of these were named they were beautiful natural sculptures, however now the most of the springs lie dormant leaving only the rocks behind but the color of the springs vanish with the hot water. So when one was named Minerva the Roman goddess of sculpture one can imagine how beautiful it once was.

As I said above a lot of these are dormant but not all. Our two favorites were Canary Springs and Orange Mound. I belief that Orange mound looks a lot like a mammoth. Thus the area's name but apparently not enough of one to name it so. (Picture coming soon.) This formation is amazing. The color is all orange for the small organisms in the water. The water also created these interesting ridges and mounds that give it this great texture. All day I struggled to find items that would turn up well on my digital camera and it was not until I found this mound that I was truly inspired. (Wow that was really pretentious I'm sorry)

Afterwards with our damaged GPS we made the drive to Bozeman using the classic call ahead for directions technique. Once there we were welcomed with open arms and two barking puppies.

Alie and I's recommendation for this park, go and hire a snow coach or a snowmobile guide and come in the winter or spring. There is a lot less people, many more animals, and the snow just allows these geological formations and colors to really stand out. The two major draw backs are you cannot explore it alone, trust us not a that big of a deal and some areas are closed. But you cannot get the entire park in one trip so try it in both. Overall Yellowstone ranks one of the best parks we've been to so far and I have ever been in my life.

Some stats that are a little off but only very slightly. Due to GPS testing that occured today.

Distance: 312.3mi
Moving Time: 1h 40m
Stopped: 24m 46s
Total Time: 2h 5m
Overall/Moving Average: Completely utterly inaccurate wrong but for fun I'll post them any way and you guess which ones are which. 149mhp 186mph.




Overall is the first number and moving is the second.

UPDATES Ahoy!

Welcome back. After a real short hiatus we have returned. The blackouts were due to no internet connecting in West Yellowstone and lack of an easy connection here. But thats relatively sorted now. I am terribly sorry about I'm also sorry about the out of order posting, but catching up with this and me trying to tie up loose ends with my credit card, GPS, and power block has resulted in a convoluted posting procedure.

First let me show you around the new old stuff. I've updated three previous posts with stats and/or maps. These can be found here and here and finally here.

Second we've added two days and are adding a third shortly.

Third: Updates on little odds and ends issues that have come up.

A. The power block. You may remember that my power block was left in San Fran, well the Days Inn there had it and said they will ship it to Montana with no charge, however. It will get here next week. :( I'll have to have it shipped to New Jersey and use Alie's computer for picture storage since she has mysteriously stopped taking pictures.

B. My credit card issues was that we never stayed in the room I charged to it because the company never sent any information over. So I am trying to dispute the claim. It has now posted, but the claim office was closed tonight, thus I'll have to call tomorrow.

C. The worst one of all the GPS. This is a new problem to our readers but its something we've been struggling with for a few days now. And I have good news. The problem originally was that it would either not find the satellites it needs to triangulate our position or it would find them and then loose them if we travelled any distance at all. So today while Alie was shopping for a present. I was on the phone with Garmin. And what they did was nothing short of WONDERFUL. I was on the phone with a Matt, he is a Montana native and knew of Bozeman well. I told him the issue and he said I should have no problems acquiring satellites in downtown Bozeman. Which I was.

He said our unit was in need of repair. So he was going to ship us a new unit ASAP so that we could continue our road trip with a GPS unit. The problem being that the shipping office had closed about a 1/2 an hour ago so we would get the new unit sometime Saturday. I told him that was okay but we were planning on leaving Saturday morning. He said hold let me call shipping and stop the truck to see if I can get this order out today. And he did which enabled us to get the new unit to us tomorrow (Friday).

All we had to do was give him a credit card to charge the new unit to just to make sure they aren't just giving us one and not getting something back in return. Once Garmin gets our current unit, they will remove the charge and we get to keep the brand new GPS unit. He also is going to ship us a different kind of mount so we do not have to worry about the unit falling and being damaged again. This was wonderful Matt did not have to stop the truck nor did he have to send us a different kind of mount nor allow us to keep any of our current accessories.

This has made me a lifetime buyer of Garmin products. The units themselves are easy to use, light and portable, and the costumer service is beyond compare. Thanks to Matt and Garmin for pulling us out of a major problem.

Finally Photo dumps will return shortly. Just after we get all this writing done with and I am able to go through the 600+ or photos and see which ones are worthy and which are not.

Day 29: Big Rocks

We started our day traveling 4:30 hours to Grand Teton National. Park Alie and I were here in our previous visit to Montana thus we did not feel we needed to explore the park as thoroughly as we have previous ones. The fact is Tetons is a very small park in comparison there are a few trails here and there but they are relatively longer ones and we had arrived later in the day, about 3:30. Thus we went down the road that is closed in the winter and it took us to Jenny Lake there we enjoyed a much closer view of the Tetons then we have previously seen and found it very interesting to see the park not covered entirely in snow. Alie and agreed that we preferred the snowy cliffs to the bare ones we saw today. It also helped that during the winter Tetons is much less crowded.

The real adventure started when we had to travel to West Yellowstone for our place to stay. It is only about 60 miles from Jenny Lake, but the quickest rout is via the John Rockefeller Jr. Memorial Highway. This small stretch of road connects Yellowstone and the Tetons. Once we hit Yellowstone it was rather dark and forced us to be fairly slow so we could react to wildlife crossings and such. It also did not help that through out the day the GPS mount kept falling from its perch and possibly damaging it. Through our journey through the two parks we could not get decent satellite reception for any long period of time. Alie and I are hoping that it is the geography of the parks that was preventing it and not some greater threat.

But that was a small problem compared to an RV that was a head of us for most of the park. It stopped suddenly in front of us; both Alie and I thought she was pulling over to appreciate the very last traces of lights and the coming stars in an awkward place. It did not occur to us that there was some other reason until Alie spotted a HUGE dark shape walking away from the RV. The woman driving it was going slowly but ending up smacking into a Buffalo head on. The beast survived and wandered into the wilderness, the woman was shaken, but not hurt. The RV however was a different story. The diriver side lights were all busted and broken. The hood was crumpled and leaking anti freeze. Someone follow alie and I in a black suburban went a head to call a ranger, since no one got cell service, while alie and I stayed with the woman,apparently her first time in the park, until the Ranger arrived. It was only a few minuets and then we were on our way to battle again the the GPS.

Results it did not really know where our hotel was, nor did it know where we were. Obvious not good. Nevertheless it still calculates routes even when it cannot find satellites, under s different setting, and has very detailed mpas of the entire US built in. so worse comes to worse we can use it as a portable MapQuest or such; hopefully it will not come to that. Tomorrow will see how it fairs. It its still acting up will call Garmin and see what they can do for us. Ibelieve its still under warrenty.

Due to the GPS malfunction the stats are not completely accurate but they provide data that I deem good enough. Tomorrow we do Yellowstone’s Mammoth Springs and then head to Bozeman to the see Grandparent Howards! We are very excited!!!

BEHOLD The Return of the MAP:


47% of the country!
Distance: 613.0mi
Overall Average: 78.5mph
Moving Average: 87.2mph
Moving time: 7h 1m
Stopped 45m 44s
Total: 7h 47m

Day 31: The Air Up Here

Hello all from Big Sky Country! We finally made it to Bozeman, MT to my Nonnie and Papaw's house last night where we were welcomed with loving arms. It is so nice to be back at a "home base" of sorts, and consequently we enjoyed a simple, if not mundane day of enjoying some of the comforts of home.

For starters, we were able to sleep in as long as we liked without the threat of a "housekeeping" knock at our door. And we took full advantage of it!!! Wandering out of bed at around noon, we were welcomed by bagels, doughnuts and coffee all at our disposal, and soon after good company arrived back home to chat and spend time with us. But we had a mission: to get our lives in order. We relished the moments spend "in town" doing errands. We finished our laundry, which was a very necessary. Then we gave the car a much needed wash at the local carwash. After that we went to the drugstore to pick up some things, and to a local store to pick up a birthday/thank-you gift for my grandparents. All trips were quite successful as was the complete inside renovation of the car! No more trash, and we can even find our stuff...imagine!!

Perhaps the most successful part of our day was concerning our GPS. After a day or two of trouble with our "lifeline," Matt called the Garmin dealer to report the problem. We anticipated some heartache and inconvenience, but we got the opposite. We will be shipped a brand new system tomorrow that we will get to keep with just a deposit to put down refundable when we return the broken one. This is a HUGE load of our minds! Just thinking about trying to get back without the device we have relied on for so long is unnerving,a nd is is nice to have that settled, and rather pleasantly at that!

This evening we enjoyed good food, drink and company as we had a tostada dinner outside with my Nonnie and Papaw, their nephew Bob and his wife Sue and Tom their neighbor. We had a great time talking and laughing into the evening, and it was so nice to have some company and familiar faces. Now we are ready to get another good night's sleep, and we are ready for an adventure tomorrow! We are going out to Virginia City to see a good ole western ghost town and spend some quality time with Nonnie and Papaw. For now, goodnight!

Stats: negligable, only driving was in town =)
Tomorrow: Virgina City! A real live commericalized ghost town!