Yellowstone: Fire in the Hole Adventure

We woke up at the Old Faithful Inn and looked out the window to see Old Faithful sputtering and smoking, with a smaller crowd than later in the day.  The tour buses usually pull up in the afternoon and hordes of people descend to see the famous show.  Early in the morning, it's just the people staying nearby and a few park employees passing through.  Off in the distance, we could see other geysers smoking on the rocky plain.

We've been on the road for a week, so it was time to check out the laundry facilities so we could have fresh clothes and get ride of the stinky stuff in our luggage.  The laundry is conveniently located next to the Medical Clinic, so I went to be checked out by a doctor.  My bronchial crud disease seemed to have taken hold with a vengeance, and my voice is hoarse from coughing and not very pleasant to listen to, I'm sure. 

According to the doctor/nurse/medical person with a stethoscope named Eddie, I have some kind of allergy/asthmatic condition brought on by the fact that things are blooming in Yellowstone and the high altitude.  He gave me an inhaler, said he saw no signs of infection, and $250 later, I was on my way to fold laundry, feeling no better than when I went in.  I took a few hits off the inhaler, breathed a little easier, and continued to sound Marge Simpson and Harvey Fierstein's love child.

Since I was in no shape to go hiking, we opted for a tour instead. We chose the "Fire Hole Basin Adventure," a three hour jaunt to the park's major thermal features in a 1937 restored yellow bus.  Frank and Alex referred to it as the "Fire in the Hole" tour and had fun pointing out steam vents and shouting "fire in the hole!" and bursting out laughing.

We had seen the vintage buses tooling around the park, and it looked like a cool way to see the main attractions in the park.  "Thermal Features" are what park employees call the 10,000 or so hotsprings, geysers, steam vents, and other thermal activity bubbling and steaming up from the lava activity underground.  In case you hadn't heard and been scared witless by it already, most of Yellowstone is one giant volcano caldera, last erupting about 640,000 years ago.  When it blows again, it will likely take out most of North America, set the earth off its orbit and send the planet hurtling into the sun.  OK, I made up the part about hurtling into the sun, but it will be bad.  Really bad.

Putting aside all thoughts of planetary destruction, we boarded the big yellow bus and found that we were the only people on the afternoon tour.  Our friendly tour guide/driver, Drew, was an interesting fellow who recounted not only trivia about the park and all the thermal features, but his life as well. 

Drew was a chef for a major hotel chain who decided to chuck the corporate life for a more adventurous one.  He started out at Yellowstone as a chef in the various lodges, then decided to take his craft south, way way south, to Antarctica.  He worked there as a chef during the Antarctic summers (our winters) and came back to Yellowstone in the summer.  His last stint was 17 months in Antarctica, both summer and winter, and he had to spend more time in the sun before he could go back again.  He told us about swimming with sharks in Australia, bungy jumping in New Zealand, and the fact that his first plane ride was when he was in jump school in the service.  Alex liked the fact that drew was an "adventuring guy" like his hero Indiana Jones, but instead of archeology, Drew's skill was cooking.

Our tour took us out to various geysers, bubbling mud pots, and steam vents.  Some of the colors where just amazing.  One of the "Paint Pots" looked like a steaming, gurgling bowl of cream of wheat.  Another was an amazing pool of turquoise water.

Most of Yellowstone is deep green pine trees and granite, but the colors of some of these thermal features were exquisite and unlike anything else I've seen.

Sometimes, it was as if we'd landed on the moon or Mars.  Then we'd see the busloads of tourists, and realize we were back on earth.

After the tour, we thanked Drew and headed back to the Inn for supper and packed up our stuff for the next leg of our trip.  Next stop: Little Big Horn, Montana.

Posted using the Sprint Compass™ 597 by Sierra Wireless, generously loaned to me for the trip by Sierra Wireless. 

Comments

[Tour Of Jordan]

Beautiful pics you have there ...
wonder how you managed to get the terrain so clearly in the pics ...
nice post ..