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We slept late and had a lazy morning not setting off til 11am.
First stop was at Mammoth Springs for the long walk around the boardwalks surrounding the geothermal terraces. There are some terrific geysers and bubbling pools. Much of it has been inactive for many years but there were some pretty pink and white terraces where the now extinct ones were. There are lots of trees that had been caught by the flow decades ago but still stand where they grew and died., frozen in time.
Here and there we spot some trees, wild flowers & the occasional cactus, slowly bringing the terraces back to life.
A few minutes south of Mammoth Springs we see a bison, right at the edge of the road. A car has stopped in a pull out, fair enough, but a guy is out with a small child and they're about 3 feet from the huge beast, so dangerous specially for the child! We decide to stop to take advantage of the photo op and get to within about 3m of it, take a couple of pics and hear a siren. A park ranger puts his vehicle between us and others who've done the same as us and the bison. A short lecture which boiled down to they can kill you and threat of fines then ensues, we were bad kids :-(
We continued south past towering cliffs, turquoise glacial lakes and open plains. Here and there we stopped and took a a walk in the forest. At one stage we got held up for half an hour or more at road works. Winding our way through a forest of towering pines, passing small areas of thermal activity and small streams we came to Norris Geyser Basin. It's a huge area with a lot of variations on the geothermal spectrum, boiling pools of every hue and geysers big and small. We hiked around the area for a couple of hours but still only saw about two thirds of it.
Still heading south we took some side roads and found some scenic gems, waterfalls, bison and the odd small spots of bubbling water, just casually thrown up here and there, beside the road or on the edge of a river or lake. In places we saw hot water from a geyser flowing down and into a river, hot meets cold :-) Then there'd be a larger area covering both sides of the road before turning once more into forest.
We checked out Firehole River, some rapids and waterfalls before finding its source, Firehole Lake which was a large shallow looking lake which was boiling! Nearby we saw a geyser go off reaching way up into the sky, not sure how high as we were a short distance away when it went off.
Next we checked out our original destination when we set off, Old Faithful. We parked up, wandered over and found it was due to go in under five minutes - good timing :-) it had a few false starts then let rip, well worth the drive.
We started heading home about 6pm, again wandering off the road and checking out here and there. Saw an awesome sunset while at a waterfall but only bison as far as wildlife went, unless you count anonymous eyes glinting in the headlights from trees and road side shrubs lol
We took the long way home and didn't get here til after 9.30, another 10.30pm dinner, sigh....
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