We went to Jellystone, but there was no Yogi!

Near the entrance to Jellystone

We awoke at 5am this morning to get an early start. We crept out of the house and headed into town to get gas. No one was at the gas station, but it still accepted credit cards. Just before I started filling I noticed the octanes. Regular grade octane in Montana seems to be 85.5, so we had to buy 89 octane to fill the car. It seemed to make a world of difference, because with the previous tank (of which I'm unsure of the grade, but assume was 85.5) I got 25mpg, and I found out later today that I got nearly 40mpg on our way to Jellystone. I dropped .50 on the stack of newspapers waiting to be brought into the store, and we headed onto the great Montana freeway system. All the freeways seem to have speed limits of 75, which is about what the Elantra really likes to cruise at, so Stephanie set the cruise control and we ate up the miles.

The drive into Jellystone is quite pretty in it's own right. We drove through green fields surrounded by majestic mountains, followed swiftly flowing rivers bounded by steep red canyons, and generally just interesting landscapes. We crossed the missouri river twice and pulled into the park around noon.

Yellowstone really is an awesome place. Unfotunately a beetle infestation in the past couple years has decimated the forests. It looks like a corps of some sort has replanted the trees, so there is a 3 foot forest of trees growing beneath the much taller dead forest. We drove on the southern loop of the park and saw the paint pots, the prismatic pool, and old faithful. The paint pots are a series of thermal pools with the special one in the middle. The outlying pools are an eerie blue color that comes from the water being so close to boiling that nothing can live in them. The have an orangish mat of bacteria around them that convert the sulphuric acid in the water into organic compounds. The sulphur that doesn't get converted is quite smelly. Stephanie gagged, and we were glad for the strong wind that blew most of it away. The real prize of the location is the paint pots themselves. They are a boiling pit of white mud that plops and flows just like an acrylic paint.

Further down the road we stopped at the prismatic pool. This jewel is again surrounded by interesting thermal pools. The first pool is quite large and bathes you in stinky steam as you walk up the wooden walkway to view it. It's an odd sensation to be completely drenched in hot steam and then have the wind blow it all away and make you feel actually cold in the 80 degree weather. The prismatic pool is at the end of the 1/2 mile walkway, and it's awesome. It's called the prismatic pool cuz it has every color in the rainbow in it. The center is a deep purple and it spreads to blue, then green, then yellow and orange at the edge where the bacterial mat takes over. We saw moose tracks crossing the mat. I guess moose don't mind a little hotfoot now and then.

Onward we went to Old Faithful. We stopped at the lodge and had lunch, then walked out to the viewing area. There seemed to be about 2000 people waiting to view the water spout. We hardly waited 5 minutes before it erupted with glory. It shoots up about 75 feet and goes on for about 2 minutes. At the first sign of eruption the whole crowd oooohed, but by about 30 seconds in most people were already walking away.

Old Faithful, and young baldy.

We left Old Faithful and continued our faithful journey towards the east. The rest of Jellystone is less concentrated as the previous areas, but still quite interesting. Yellowstone lake is large, and pretty. It's surrounded by random thermal pools and dead forest. Near the exit we finally saw our first wildlife, 2 buffaloes, quite near the road, just foraging. Stephanie jumped out of the car to go take some pictures, and as I watched, some stupid kid started throwing rocks at one to try to get a better picture of the buffalo's head. I hoped he would die, but disappointingly, nothing happened.

This is post-rock throwing. You can see how angry he is.

The drive out of Yellowstone was marred by a long stretch of construction, but it gave us plenty of time to enjoy the view. A fierce windstorm rolled in while we were waiting and blew over all of the contruction signs. The drive out of Yellowstone is just as impressive as the drive in. There's towering cliffs and carved mountain tops. The forest outside of the park seems to be in much better health, and the roads are once again 75mph. We decided to drive through Cody and get a little farther today, so ended up in Greybull wyoming. We might have stayed in Cody, but they didn't have a Starbucks to tempt us, so we pressed on.

This is even higher than the pass in Glacier, but it was completely underwhelming.

The drive from Cody to Greybull was right through the center of the windstorm. Tumbleweeds crossed the road like some real life game of frogger, and most of the camper trailers pulled over, to avoid being tipped over. Of course, Stephanie drove like a champion and got us to our destination unscathed. Greybull has a large air museum we could see from the road, with what looked like hundreds of retired b-29s and other large planes. The rest of the town seems to be motels, and the one we found has internet access in the room. So yay! Two posts today.

We had terrible dinner at a diner near the motel, but at least the waitress was sweet.

That is all.