Yellowstone!

This is me being excited about being at Yellowstone.  It's very difficult to get a photo of yourself with a real smile on your face when you're travelling alone and there's nobody else within eyesight, so I was clearly very excited.  This was taken in front of Phantom Lake, if I recall correctly.

There was a lot of the park that wasn't accessible when I was there.  I got there in the real off-season, that grey zone between the end of the summer season, the Thanksgiving rush, and the start of the winter season.  So most of the park was very much shut.  I'd never realised how damn big the park is either - from the nearest point I could access, Old Faithful geyser, and the rest of the geyser fields, were 52 MILES away.  That's about 85km.

However, that still left me with about 45 miles of road that I could access, and in the end, after 5 days, I never made it to the far end.  It's the kind of place where you get another mile or two down the road and have to stop for another photo session because there's another kind of awesome wild animal right in front of you or another beautiful view.  There was also a big set of hot springs that I could wander around and take many, many photos of, it just didn't feature geysers.

So.  Photos.

Bison are idiots on the road.

Spot the elk.  (Hint:  He's under the trees, slightly to the left of centre.)

I WAS going to see a waterfall but he was right where I wanted to walk, and I'm not silly enough to think he'd be the first to run away.

Trying to be Ansel Adams.

I was so strongly reminded of his photography when I first got to Yellowstone.  

Turns out he did a lot of work there.

Liberty Cap - a cone from an old hot spring.

I think I told Dad this was about 8' high.  I'm revising my opinion - it's more like twice my height.

From the right angle, it looks like a face.

Just like being at home!  It even smells the same.

This is part of Mammoth Hot Springs.  This particular site is called Palette Spring.

We're still at Mammoth Hot Springs.

Prongtails, at the entrance to the park.  Super cute.

I was pretty fascinated by the bird but couldn't identify it.  Neala will probably know, just from glancing at the black spot it shows up as in this photo.

Lava creek

Soda buttress

Orange Spring Mound

Dad, not sure if this is the waterfall you saw photos of, but this is the one I saw!!

Undine Falls

Self-guided walking trail, with boards giving information on wildlife, botany, and geology.

I learned about resurgent domes - oooh, aaahhhh.

Well, I feel like that's probably enough photos to jam up everybody's inboxes nicely.

I absolutely adored Yellowstone.  While I was there, it finally dawned on me that studying geology does lead to other possible careers outside of working for GNS.  I'd always thought about it pretty narrowly, and figured that unless I got a PhD and worked as a scientist, there was very little work for a geologist in NZ, but it is something I've always loved and been fascinated by, so I'm thinking I'll give that one a shot when I get home.  After having told anyone who'd listen over the last few years that I had no interest in ever going back to uni!