Yellowstone Trip: Day 4

After a good night sleep, we leave Billings and make our way to our destination - Yellowstone National Park.  The view from Billings to Bozeman is much more scenic.  We start seeing mountains which is a welcome site after seeing plains for a couple days.

At the north entrance of the park, you drive through a beautiful arch built in 1903.  At the top is inscribed the following quote:  "For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the people."  Shortly after, you are required to pay the fee to stay in the park: $25 for 7 days.  Just past the toll booth, there was a sign (on the right) - this made me laugh out loud because for me, the word molesting doesn't fit there!  I don't think I would ever want to "molest" a bison (the word molest for me is of  sexual nature)!  I think the words harass or harm would've been a better choice of word but anyway... When I got home I had to look up the word molest in the dictionary - ok, it was an online dictionary - it can also be used to mean harass or harm.  We pay and continue on to Mammoth Springs where we will stay for 4 days.

When we arrived in Mammoth, our cabin wasn't ready and so off we went to the education center to get our maps and other information and lunch.  Once done, we got in the car to go see our first thermal features.




One of the first things we saw when we arrived in Mammoth is a man gouged by a bison.  I don't understant... there are big signs everywhere that say wildlife is dangerous - do NOT approach... so why would someone think it's okay to get close?  Was this person blind and didn't see the 50 signs since the entrance? If you don't understand the words you should understand the picture don't you think?


We move on to see our first spring.  When we had heard of Mammoth Springs we automatically thought of hot springs, wading in hot water, just like in Banff National Park. Boy were we wrong!  I've never seen anything like this before!  The colours are absolutely wonderful, the smell - not so much!  It smells like rotten eggs due to the gases found everywhere.  Bubbling water -which we later learned was gases escaping from the earth.  In some places, the bubbling water is actually boiling water but we will talk about that later.  When you get to Yellowstone, you learn very quickly the importance of staying on the marked paths.  There are signs everywhere - falling through thin crust would result in death... ouch!

After walking in scorching hot weather we were able to get to our cabin. We were able to get a very cute cabin for the 4 days we were there).  It was so cute and well maintained, clean and best of all: no spider webs!  We had to use a community washroom but whatever!  They were also very clean - with no bugs in site!

This was a very long day- lots of walking -probably 5 - 6 km - and learning - I like to read all the signs and learn - often annoying the rest of the family.

I look forward to seeing what tomorrow will bring!