A Yellowstone Update

On the road away from Yellowstone and traffic has finally eased. Yellowstone National Park has been by far the busiest place on this trip. Long lines at the grocery and longer lines of cars at every turn could easily categorize Yellowstone, but then you must ask why. This park has an incredible amount of natural treasures to offer. Geysers, hot springs, and mud volcanoes all give Yellowstone a unique landscape that no other park has given me on this journey. I wrote a little bit about Old Faithful in my last blog entry, but there are many other geysers. The Great Fountain Geyser was my favorite. It look blew up more water than any geyser I saw and it had these terraces that made it look like the geyser had hundreds of little waterfalls. The Grand Prismatic Spring was a very colorful, very hot pool of water. Because of the high temperature of the water only a few microorganisms called thermophiles can live there. These thermophiles are very colorful little things and give the water bright orange, green, and yellow colors. The brightness of the water makes it look unreal. Mud volcanoes might be the most interesting of all. The Fountain Paint Pot was a great bubbly mess. It looked like liquid clay just boiling and popping everywhere. Very surreal!

The weather was the wildest here at Yellowstone. One night it was so cold that our breath froze to the sides of the tent. On another evening, I was hiking along at sundown and clouds started to pass over. Next thing I knew, little pieces of hail were falling out of the sky. During the daytime, it was hot and sunny and at night, very cold. It was nothing like Indiana weather. Not that I miss those 90 degree days with 95% humidity J.

For this park, I decided to paint at the Lower Falls of Yellowstone River. There is a gigantic waterfall there. The water has this awesome green color to it and the canyon walls leading down to the river are yellow, orange, and gray. Beautiful! I worked on this painting longer than any other on the trip. I had so much fun with it. While painting, I fell into a trance where I lost track of time. These times are the best. Whenever I can lose track of time because I am in love with what I’m doing is a real blessing! Photographs of the first sketches of the Lower Falls are up on the blog, but since I lost myself with painting, I forgot to take a final picture! Coming soon: Mr. Smith’s final painting of the Lower Falls.