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Friday, August 21, 2015

Yellowstone...the Nation's First and BEST National Park

Imagine sitting in a car for 14 hours, passing by states, and getting farther away from California.
The sky was pitch-black and daylight was nowhere to be found. The streets were deserted and our car was the only vehicle in about a 10-mile radius. It was 3:00 a.m and my family and I were on our way to Yellowstone National Park. As we sped across California, the sun rose, giving light and life to the cities we drove past. We were entering Nevada, the Silver State and it had been four hours since we left home. The only thing that kept me excited was looking at Snapchat Geofilters. We didn't stop for lunch since our car was packed from the bottom to the top with snacks and other random food. After another boring 6 hours, we reached Nampa, Idaho.
Good news: we were in Idaho! Bad news: another 8 hours to go.
Wind patterns
In the past hour, we had drove through two different time zones! It seemed unrealistic to be 1:00 p.m one minute, and in the next mile, 2:00 p.m!
Our first stop on the way to Yellowstone was Bruneau Sand Dunes State Park. At the state park, the temperature was nearly 100 degrees, but it felt so much warmer. The sharp sun rays hit the sand dunes directly. We began to hike up towards the top of the sand dunes. Although it wasn't a steep hike, it was still a little tough because we were walking on loose, hot, sand. As we walked towards the peak of the sand dunes, the wind speed increased. Soon, I felt like the wind would take me with it^.^ Because of the robust wind, the sand that made up the dunes naturally formed into a wavy design! After spending some quality time at the top of the sand dunes, we walked back down, pushing against the powerful wind. At the Bruneau Dunes State Park, there were camping sites available and if we would have lived in Idaho, I'm sure we would have camped by the great dunes.
View from the top of the dunes
The Bruneau Sand Dunes were quite an experience, but to make the trip more adventurous... midway to our hotel, in the middle of a desert, our car ran out of gas! We were driving to our hotel which was only about half an hour away from the dunes. The road we were driving on was surrounded by barren land on both sides. There was nothing but grass and farming land. And our car chose this time to run out of gas. There were no shopping malls or even houses around this "town"....and no other cars on the road either. Our car had 5 more miles to go until it ran out of gas! Between the irregular surges of signal on our phones, we tried our best to look at GoogleMaps to locate the nearest gas station. Unfortunately, the nearest gas station that showed up was too far away. Our car wouldn't be able to take us there! We decided to keep on driving, hoping for a miracle. The number of miles our car would run declined rapidly and soon the display of the gasoline went blank...we were out of gas randomly in the middle of Idaho! Our car was running on the leftover gas and would stop any moment. Not giving up, we kept driving and VIOLÀ! There was a gas station!! It was so surprising to see that a gas station would be there, in the middle of nowhere, right when we needed it. 
After that close call, we headed to our hotel in Mountain Home, Idaho. 
The hit of the next day was driving to the Craters of the Moon National Monument. The Craters of the Moon National Monument was named when Robert Limbert, an explorer and journalist, thought that the monument looked like the surface of the moon and he decided to call it the Craters of the Moon. The Craters of the Moon is an ocean of volcanic land. Everything in the
Craters of the Moon
National Monument is dark black and rocky. The craters were created thousands of years ago by a series of volcanic eruptions. The same eruptions throughout the world caused the Earth to form. As we drove past the black hard rocks, we spotted a couple of cinder cone volcanoes. In some areas of the monument, we got down to walk through the craters. It was amazing to see these sleeping, not dead, volcanoes creating all those craters! The incredible thing about the Craters of the Moon National Monument was that the Apollo 14 astronauts(Gene Curnan, Alan Shepard, Joe Engle, and Ed Mitchell) visited the Craters of the Moon National Monument to study about the volcanic formations. This was to educate themselves of the Moon's geography before actually going to the Moon.  
Shoshone Falls
Day by day we got closer to our final destination...Yellowstone!
We visited countless attractions en route to Yellowstone, including the Idaho's Potato Museum and the Shoshone Falls. 
Since Idaho is the "Potato Capital of the World", we decided to visit the famous Potato Museum in Blackfoot, Idaho. Although the Potato Museum wasn't as interesting as we had expected, the Shoshone Falls, our next stop took our breath away. While driving to the Shoshone Falls, it began to drizzle and soon dark clouds gathered above. We reached the entrance, which was on top of a hill, of the Shoshone Falls. From that point, we couldn't see any waterfall... all we could see was the pouring rain, the distant lightning strikes, and thunder. As we drove down the hill towards the parking lot, we heard the roar of a waterfall. Grabbing all the umbrellas and raincoats we can, we went towards the noise and there it was! We gasped in astonishment at the Shoshone falls, pounding against the rocks. We went to the observation deck and the rain had conveniently stopped! Now, it was just the strong mist and noise from the falls. The Shoshone Falls, taller than the Niagara Falls, was breathtaking. The sun's rays struck the falls, giving it a little shine. The Shoshone Falls, or the Niagara of the West, was definitely worth seeing. 
On the fourth day of our road trip, we drove through Teton Valley and entered Yellowstone National Park! 
Beryl Spring
Since our hotel was located in the West side of Yellowstone, we drove through the state of Montana to enter from Yellowstone's West Entrance. After entering the Park, we drove through the coniferous trees to reach the Beryl Spring. This was the first spring we saw there, and all the tourists were in awe. How could a natural feature under the Earth have so much pressure and heat to create a hot spring? The burbling springs were places where water welled up from under the EarthThe Beryl Spring was a blue-green color and about 188 degrees Fahrenheit(85 deg. Celsius)! All the attractions we saw in Yellowstone were spectacular, and we'd only been there for one day! My favorite was the Artists' Paint Pots. The Paint Pot Trail was an easy walk around many of Yellowstone's geothermal features. The boardwalk we walked on took us so close to the steaming mudpots, geysers, fumaroles, and springs. The colors of the paint pots were so contrasting, from dark reds to
Bubbling mudpots
 bright blues. And to think all of these were naturally made from volcanic magma under the ground, the same ground we were walking on! As we were walking, few of the small geysers were erupting and its warm water drizzled on the tourists like rain! It was an amazing experience!! The whole area looked like a different world, not Earth anymore. Next, we saw the sulfurous mudpots. A mudpot is an acidic hot spring, with not much water and more of bubbling mud. The mud is continuously created by acid and microorganisms which decompose the surrounding rocks into clay and mud. We were literally about five feet away from naturally boiling mud. The mud was pure white and looked like a witch's stew bubbling every two seconds! After that surprising geothermal feature, we headed towards the steaming fumaroles, which were openings in volcanoes from which hot gasses emerged. Because of the high amounts of
sulfur, the fumaroles were extremely red in color, and they stunk like rotten eggs! The funny thing was that everyone who walked past it would cover their nose, because its smell was so strong and unpleasant! We managed to take couple of pictures and moved on. We walked on the boardwalk, through the Yellowstone forests, and we could see clouds of steam(from geysers and springs) here and there. It was as though the treetops were producing the steam. As we made it to the exit of the Paint Pots, a geyser called Vixen Geyser, began to gurgle. We decided to stop to take more pictures, which turned out to be one of the best decisions of the trip. The Vixen Geyser started bubbling rapidly and all of a sudden it erupted!! Right in front of our eyes!!! The shimmering geyser sent out a tall column of warm water, fresh from Earth's core. It erupted for five minutes and throughout the whole time, none of the crowd talked, we were all in great awe and surprise. After it died down, we headed our way out of the Paint Pots. Over the next few days in Yellowstone National Park, we visited a couple of more geysers and mudpots. 

It was 1:00 p.m on August 13th and we had been standing in the middle of a crowded boardwalk on a extremely hot day for more than 20 minutes. 10 minutes passed... still no eruption from the glorious Old Faithful. The crowd was getting tired and ready to leave. But at 1:18 p.m the Old Faithful erupted, shooting out water up to 150 feet in the air! It was spectacular

Old Faithful!
and totally worth the wait. After two minutes it went down and the crowd left. We decided to wait another 90 minutes and watch Old Faithful's eruption again. And again... Despite the extreme heat, we stayed at Old Faithful to watch it three times, and the last time to take a family selfie with it while it was erupting . After that, it was time to go back to our hotel. On the way we decided to stop by the Mud Volcanoes. There was traffic throughout the road, and we were wondering why when we drove around the corner and there were hundreds of BISON everywhere! Left and right, on the hill and valley, even on the road! This was what was creating all the traffic and commotion. The bison were so massive and shaggy! Even one knock on a car from a bison would easily make a dent on the vehicle. Soon, a couple of Park Rangers arrived to help clear the traffic. We continued to make our way to the Mud Volcanoes. 


Bison walking down trail
In the Mud Volcanoes, there was a boardwalk for us to walk on, through the bubbling mudpots. Although the bad odor was still there, it was really cool to see this natural geothermal feature. We planned to walk up the hill on a trail to see the view of the mud volcanoes from a high point. BUT... the weirdest thing happened! As we were hiking up, a couple of BISON began to walk down the trail
The next day was our last and shortest day at Yellowstone. We decided to take the challenging trail, called Uncle Tom's Trail, down to the "Grand Canyon of Yellowstone" and the Lower Falls. Although the majority of the hike was nothing but stairs, it was more strenuous than you would think! There were more than 300 steep steps against the side of a mountain. To the left of us was a rough waterfall and river, and to the right was the walls of a canyon! The bottom of the hike gave us a great view of the canyon and waterfall... but the strenuous hike back up 300 stairs was tough because there were no benches to rest at and the elevation change was more than 500 feet! After conquering that little adventure, it was time to say goodbye to Yellowstone. 
Uncle Tom's Trail
The road trip was fantastic and I would definitely recommend going there for anyone who hasn't. 
For the 2,600 miles my parents drove... without a doubt, going to Yellowstone, the first and absolutely the best national park, was worth it!
Thanks for reading :) 




-LIVE CAM of the Old Faithful: http://www.nps.gov/features/yell/webcam/oldFaithfulStreaming.html







3 comments:

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  2. hey aish!
    its totally cool ( Though it would hav been terribly hot for u all ). The way u have narrated and the way u have coincided the pictures with it help us visualise more easily. Its all so realistic.. Now its like we'v also been to the yellowstone park but not through the 2600 miles but just through a few 100's of words. And yea, i want to see that selfie soon!

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    1. Aww thankss Shruthi Akka❤️ Haha I'll def send u that selfie 😂

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