This morning's activities -

Here are some excerpts of the conversation and descriptions in my van this morning after the kids saw the Mudpots area and Yellowstone Falls. Abi was driving while I transcribed the conversation with the boys in our van - Will G., Will W., Scott B., Eric D., and Ben P.

First stop was the Mudpots - an area where the thermo-dynamic activity underground creates muddy, bubbling pools, some of which erupt like thick geysers, and all of which contain dangerously acidic water and smell of sulpher...

WG: That was some big brown mud, and it smells really bad - pits of mud that comes up from underground with sulfur gas – the lake looked really colorful
CG: Did anyone notice how each area smelled slightly different from each other?
SB: The more steamy they were they smellier they were.
BP: It’s the earth’s core! Pushing gas up to form bubbles
WG: It super-heats the water and mud and it explodes and then makes a hole which fills and smells bad
BP: The sulpher had made it all yellow
WG: The fumaroles are the ones that have dried up and just blow steam
SB: It smelled like sulpher and I didn’t expect it to look like a lake
WG The bubbling was so big in that one lake
WW: They were awesome! And they didn’t smell as bad as I thought they would. I learned that one of the mud pits used to erupt and shoot mud 10 – 20 feet into the air.
WG: the path was rickety!
ED: They were really cool but they smelled pretty bad, and I learned that animals, like bison like to get near them, but at the risk of falling in. The mud volcano was cool because it used to erupt – there is a lake in the middle of all of it.
CG: What amazes me is that all this activity is going on underground, yet we are climbing up the side of a hill – seems like it ought to be at the bottom of a basin or valley – there is a living volcano underground and we are just outside of it – that ranger at the first day visitor center told us how you didn’t dare step off the boardwalks because the ground is so unstable and you can’t tell where you might just sink in or get swallowed up.
AR: They have to change the walkways all the time because they have to find where the ground is most steady – they haven’t been the same any of the times I’ve come
WG: I’m surprised there haven’t been more collapses like that hole in the parking lot we saw. (The ranger had told us about it eating a hole in the asphalt, from the bottom up, in a parking lot, and we saw that spot as we were leaving.)
WG: In the parking lot I saw where there was steam coming up out of one of the gutter grates for drainage – Rashaad put his coat over it and I told him it was going to make it smell bad.
CG: I think this place is neat because it is the most visible evidence we have of the activity going on underground in this whole park.

Next stop: Yellowstone Falls. We were expecting to make the steep hike down Uncle Tom's trail which would take us a close-up view of the lower falls, but it ws closed for construction. We had a good look at the upper falls from the top, but were left with some extra time, so we were able to drive around to the other side, to another observation area right at the brink of the upper falls.

ED: I wanted to go on Uncle Tom’s trail cause it looked really cool to go down by the water fall – the lower falls was really, really nice – the upper falls wasn’t that special, just like a regular fall really. The rocks were really different colors, red, orange and such.
BP: I wanted to go on Uncle Tom’s trail to be refreshed from the spray off the waterfall.
WG: They were both huge! And they were really cool – the water was moving so fast and there was lots of spray – we got close to the upper one.
WW: The water was like cool because it just fell over the edge, not just dropping, but flying. I wish we had gotten to go on Uncle Toms Trail because the lower falls looked really cool and I wanted to see it up close.
SB: The water got foamy when it was close to the waterfall and the waterfall was awesome!
CG: I was impressed by the amount of power the force of the water had – too bad they aren’t generating from that – TVA would be jealous! The noise at the upper fall overlook was deafening.

The kids also sasid they noticed many people from other countries – heard Indian, German, French, Spanish, something like Russian or Czech – lots of Japanese and Korean.Also saw a ranger leading an art class –
SB: they were watercoloring and finger painting, trying to paint the surrounding. ED: I saw some people with animal horns and the kids were putting them up to their heads like they were elk or something.

After sack lunches in the parking lot, our next stop was to be for horseback riding, but Mother Nature intervened again. The wind had picked up to 30mph or more and just as we were ready to ride, they cancelled rides for the afternoon because of danger of trees falling in the area of the trails. It must be a sign that we weren't meant to ride! We've spent the last hour in the Canyon Village visitor area, shopping, eating ice cream (again!)and generally goofing off a bit. We're going to drive up to Mt. Washburn right now - the highest point in the park - but there is a storm looming in the distance. In the morning, there is a possibility that we will be able to make the horseback ride at 9:00 - we'll see.