The plan for today was to take the northern loop of Yellowstone Park. We began by driving west to Norris and then north to Mammoth Springs. As we approached Mammoth (so named for the giant hot springs there, traffic slowed down. We soon saw why. Elk were roaming aimlessly across the road and were hanging out in shady spots all over town.
The Mammoth Springs were lined with boardwalks that took you to each of its features. Today was extremely hot, even though the thermometer only read about 86ยบ. There were many people walking around with umbrellas to keep the sun off of them. At altitude it is much easier to get a sunburn so we had to slather with lotion ourselves to prevent this. This wasn't something we were looking forward to do since taking showers were a luxury in Yellowstone.
The springs in Mammoth were large, but not particularly interesting. The water seemed to be flowing less than usual so it looked more like unusual rock structures. Because of that and the heat, we decided to take a lunch break and continue on the loop.
All of the picnic tables in Mammoth were taken so we decided to drive on until we found a picnic spot. On the drive we saw a lot of huge elk, some very close to the road.
On the way we discovered a petrified tree. I didn't know this, but this particular tree is a redwood tree that turned to stone during the last eruption of the Yellowstone super volcano 640,000 years ago. Redwood, of course, is native to California, not Wyoming. After being covered in volcanic ash, the ash minerals filled all of the pores of the tree and fossilized it, making it hard as a rock. At one point there had been three trees like this here, but souvenir hunters had chipped down the other two.
We continued on and stopped at the campground and restaurant at Tower, but it was packed so we just decided to head back home and eat. We ate lunch and then Greg watched the kids while Jen, Beth and I did laundry. While we were gone, Greg "watched" the kids. By this, I mean he took a nap on the picnic table. The boys played a lot of Pokemon on their DS while the girls did Stoga (Yoga on a stone) and see-sawed on a large fallen tree.
That evening we drove the road through Lamar Valley which many had told us was thick with wildlife. We saw bison, elk, fox, and a black bear and a grizzly through binoculars.
On the way back we were caught in a “bison jam” for about 15 minutes. As we finally made it through some people who had pulled off ahead of us clapped and cheered for us.
Because of the delay, we were leaving a little later than we had hoped to. I was concerned about driving home through some very curvy mountain road in the dark. In the twilight, we spotted a bear in the woods to the right of the road. We stopped to get a picture, but it was a little too dark. This was the best we could do.
As the sun began to set, a storm moved in and provided us with a spectacular lightning show. We arrived at the campground around 10:00 just before the rain came. We went to sleep that night to the sound of rain once again.
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