YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK

Yellowstone is a huge forest that covers almost 500 square miles in the northwest corner of Wyoming. A little bit of it is in Montana to the north and Idaho to the west. It became the first National Park in the WHOLE WORLD in 1872!! President Teddy Roosevelt, a president who was interested in conservation, was behind the idea.

There are different sections to the park. Most of it is forested, but several years ago there were giant forest fires here. You can still see the skeletons of dead trees fallen and still standing. It is interesting to see the forest coming back with the growth of baby trees.

Another section is deep canyons, caused by erosion. There are many beautiful waterfalls.

Yellowstone was an area of volcanic action. The entire inner part of the park collapsed years ago into a basin and you can get a glimpse of what the inside of the earth looks like!!! As a result hot water gets trapped in crevices below the surface and is heated by hot magma inside the earth. When it gets hot enough to boil, 212*, it erupts out of the earth in what we call a geyser, a spout of steam and boiling water. Yellowstone has more geysers than anywhere on earth! The most famous is Old Faithful, which erupts every 92 minutes!! We watched it erupt along with a big crowd of people. Geysers are the most famous hot spots, but there are also hot springs, fumaroles ( little steamers), and mudpots which are like hot springs with acid added to melt the rock into clay and mud!!!!

The last section of the park is the terraces covered by white calcium. This is an area where the scalding water is just below the surface and the earth's crust is so thin and not safe to walk on without danger of falling through!! Yikes!

We saw some animals, herds and herds of buffalo were all over even on the road!! I was surprised at how large their HEADS were and what furry faces they had!. We saw mule deer which have VERY large ears and are all along the road. I used a telephoto lens to capture bucks on the cliff ledge!! Elk were everywhere, even grazing in front of buildings. The animals have the right of way and are free to wander where ever they wish. I was counting on seeing bears, but not today. Shucks!

Yellowstone is a treasure! It is a place you will want to visit!