Read earlier entries from May.
Today we went into Yellowstone Park. We saw elk, moose, buffalo (Dad likes to call them buffler), Old Faithful (a.k.a. Old Hoseful), fearless animals, and buffalo crossing the Madison river.
The moose had an impressive rack of four points in velvet. The buffalo
and elk were everywhere and fearless. The buffalo were grunting and
Ferf wanted one in the worst way. Both the bison and the elk had
tracking collars. There were rubbings on every tree in one area.
Question: what's the difference between a buffalo and a bison?
(Answer on the 3rd.)
Today we saw an IMAX movie called Yellowstone. It was about the early people that found Yellowstone and the people that stayed in the west from survey expedition camps in Yellowstone.
We went on a guided walk through Yellowstone for my Junior Ranger Badge. We saw hot springs, plugged-up geysers, Porkchop Spring, sulfur, leech-looking bugs, and the damage from the fires of '88.
The geysers had pennies and even rocks in them which the minerals grow around to plug the crack. The guide said, "It's almost instinctive to throw something into a geyser or hot spring and watch it shoot it back out, but what happens is what you threw in gets stuck somewhere and stays, only speeding up the process of plugging the geyser."
Porkchop was a hot spring until something caused it to erupt
continuously for four years (from '85-'89) and explode deafeningly in
'89. After '89, it went back to a peaceful hot spring.
We got beat up by hail during the guided hike. I got one on the tip of my chin and it stung.
The smell of sulfur in Yellowstone is sickeningly strong.
We saw some leech-looking bugs that the ranger said were larvae of some kind of insect (I think it's the water beetle larvae).
The fires of '88 left a chunk of dead vegetation a third the size of Delaware and Rhode Island together.
We saw a herd of 149 buffalo, with 42 calves.
| We saw two marmots by the side of the road. Today we bought a t-shirt for me that said:
Look into Old Faithful. Swim in the hot pots. Pet the elk. Be in a hurry & drive fast. Go off the boardwalks. Feed the bears. Ride the buffalo. Raft the Yellowstone. We thank you for your support. YELLOWSTONE PARK PARAMEDICS.
|
 |
Whenever we go through West Yellowstone, there is a sign saying, "Spring fun, watch for bison babies!"
We met the Elliotts (yes, the ones from Arizona and Las Vegas) as they
were on their first day at Yellowstone and we were on our last. We
visited for the night and left. The next time we should see them is
in Massachusetts.
As we were leaving the park today, we saw some elk babies. They were
playful and just bouncing around.We saw some bufflehead (a type of duck) near the Fishing Bridge. Mom said she thought it wasn't legal to fish from the Fishing Bridge any more because the troll got nasty.
After we left the park I saw a moose, and we saw some bighorn sheep on a hillside.
We ate at the Safari Club in Thermopolis. They had every mount from bobcats to zebra to jackalope.
We went to the Wyoming Dinosaur Center and went to the dig site.
In the museum, we saw the remains of Stan, the fighting T-Rex. He had a hole in his skull, fused-together bones, a broken neck, and more healed major injuries.
The dig site guide was joking about how all the site names were very scientific, like ITW, PL, and SI ("in the way," "parking lot," and "something interesting").
There's the Big Horn Hot Spring in Thermopolis that pumps out
18,600,000 gallons of hot water every day that all the water parks
use. That must be why they named it Thermopolis ("hot city"). We took
a free hot mineral bath at the state park building. I got out early
because it was too hot, about 104°.
I spent four hours in a hot spring water park, where the water was comfortably warm. There were three slides. The small one dumped you into a pool after two or three turns. The big one was covered. It went in and out of the building, dropped, and put you into a pool four feet wide by one foot deep. At the end, you pulled on a string to let the next person know it was clear to go. I ended up flying off the drop and got water in my face on the last turns. On the biggest one, you sat on a rubber mat and it turned! You got thrown around at one turn and you landed in a pool and the current pulled you to the stairs.
We saw mineral domes, one called Teepee Dome, just like the Liberty Dome in Yellowstone Park.
Back at the campground there were two ponies, one with a colt and one with a filly. They were all cute.
There was a lot of sturdy snow fencing on the fields to keep the snow off the highways.
We saw Hell's Half Acre and I was expecting something more interesting than another canyon.
9th: Loveland, COToday we visited Fort Caspar and the Oregon Trail. We saw the Oregon Trail Platte River crossing. The fort looked like it was still being used because it had all new tableware. You could see the wheel ruts in the grass. The original fort was torn down and the lumber was used to build another fort so everything there is a recreation.We drove into Colorado and saw a lot of pronghorns.
|
|
|
|
Kevin stands on the Oregon Trail. The inscription reads: "This
monument marks the junction of the Oregon Trail and road to old Fort
Fetterman nine miles north of this spot. Established July 10, 1867,
abandoned May 5, 1882. Erected by the state of Wyoming and citizens of
Converse County to commemorate the early history of Wyoming, 1916."
| ||
Today we went to see the Estes model rocket plant.They had a Saturn V model rocket that was autographed by astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Alan Shepard.
They had static detectors so they could shut down the plant before a
thunderstorm to prevent explosions (they make highly flammable model
rocket engines).
Dad visited with his friend Mary Roberts.
We went through another hailstorm with marble-sized hail when we got
back to the campground.
I found some kids and skipped rocks in the river.
13th: Raton, NMBoy did we (not) move far! We're camping at the NRA's Whittington Center. There's 33,000+ acres of shooting ranges and hunting lands. Dad and I went shooting on the sight-in range and there were jackrabbits running across the range, stupid things.
|
|
|
|
The Santa Fe Trail runs right through the NRA Whittington Center.
| ||
Later, we went back to the range and Dad and I shot.
Dad re-greased the jacks using some kind of solvent for cleaning and
the paint brush bristles melted off.
We're camping in a state park and there's a family next to us. We sat around a campfire and talked. We saw a herd of at least fifteen deer near their campsite (and one fawn).
We drove through Junction, again. Ate at the same place we did last
time, saw the deer horn tree, and went back to Oscar's barber shop
again.
At this campground, we're on the banks of the Rio Frio (in the same place we took the picture from, and this time I got to swim in it). It's deeper than it looks under the bridge and the bottom isn't sand, It's one giant rock with deep grooves cut in it by the water. The white land on the right side of this photo is the edge of our campground.
We went on a guided tour of 250 acres and saw a lot of different kinds of animals. There was a herd of fallow deer that came to visit but only number one and number fifteen ate from our hands.
"The Chuckwagon" had a sign in it saying "This kitchen isn't a restaurant, you eat when I'm ready."
I played in the pool after.
The restaurant we ate at offered "Caribou Burgers" but we just had a regular breakfast.
We went to Camping World to buy an aerosol can of spray-lube. We got back, then caulked a seam and lubed the slide.
We went to Petco and bought Ferf a bag of dog cookies. Then we went to the Hobby Lobby and got some plastic cement for my model rocket. After that, we washed the car and trailer.
We spent the rest of the day in the pool.
We ate at the Texas Roadhouse. They had buckets of peanuts (one bucket would hold about a quart of water). On every beam there was a different animal mount.
We finished the chapter about Hawaii and Puerto Rico in my geography book. Russell is being stationed in Hawaii for four years.
Continue on to July.