Team Photos So today was definitely the sightseeing day…50 miles took about as much time as 100 should have because of all of our stops. After wake-up and breakfast we headed over to the entrance of the actual attractions area of Yellowstone Park (the one ya have to pay to see). Just beyond the entrance was the border into Wyoming (only a tiny sliver of Yellowstone National Park is in Montana and Idaho, the vast majority is in Wyoming). All the cool hot springs, geysers, mud pots, wildlife, etc. of the park can be seen around a big loop…we just rode along the bottom left portion of the loop today on our way to West Thumb, which actually treated us to most of the good stuff.
First sight we hit was the “Fountain Paint Pots,” which are super-cool bubbling puddles of mud…hot gasses from Yellowstone’s volcano (underground and quite active) rise up and are consumed by “thermophilic” bacteria that produce sulfuric acid…this breaks down rock into clay and you get the hot bubbling mud…sweet lesson huh? Also around this sight were my favorite natural wonders: the hot spring cauldrons. These deep pools of intense blue are ringed by colorful mineral deposits…just absolutely beautiful. We even saw a couple of small geysers…lotsa coolness in just one place. So the crew didn’t exactly know the entire team decided to stop to see all this…turns out they were frantically wondering where all the cyclists went…whoops! But we all got back on track in no time.
Further down we passed more hot springs with their characteristic rust-colored mineral deposit rings….some even had cool flows of water coming off them creating pathways of the beautiful rust color.
Finally got to see some wildlife!! Several times we passed male Bison just hanging out near the road…turns out these big boys are loners when its not mating seasons. Toward the end of the ride we hit some traffic as tons of people were hopping out of their cars to snap pics of a grizzly bear mom and her two cubs…what an awesome sight. They started to come really close to the road which made for great pics…but also had moms frantically telling their kids “get back in the car in case we need to get moving fast!!!” Kinda hilarious.
We were all just having a grand old time with the ride…just about 15 miles to go…when it turns out that we were crossing the continental divide not once but twice! So after two killer climbs we got some shots by the big divide sign…then finally pulled into Grant Village, a set of really nice lodges that put us up for the night…it’s a real treat to have a bed and your own bathroom (even with 4 big dudes per room)!
After cleaning up we went and grabbed dinner at the “Lakehouse” restaurant which gave us all-you-can-eat pasta and pizza…good stuff.
We still had plenty of hours of light (gotta love summertime) so most of the guys headed over to see Old Faithful. Our van got there just 2 minutes late so we had to wait another hour and 15 minutes before the next eruption (she’s only somewhat faithful these days), but we made the best of it hitting up the gift shops and whatnot. Finally at 8:15 on the dot the old gal did her thing…shooting water about 150 feet in the air…pretty spectacular sight! After about 4 minutes of gushing she was all done so we packed back into the vans and rolled off (necessary sidenote: on the way out we were treated to one of the most beautiful sky scenes ever…sun just looked amazing behind the clouds with rays beaming out in all directions)
After getting back to the lodges most of us took advantage of the sweet digs and crashed out early in the beds. Great day….and I get to see mom and dad tomorrow!!
First sight we hit was the “Fountain Paint Pots,” which are super-cool bubbling puddles of mud…hot gasses from Yellowstone’s volcano (underground and quite active) rise up and are consumed by “thermophilic” bacteria that produce sulfuric acid…this breaks down rock into clay and you get the hot bubbling mud…sweet lesson huh? Also around this sight were my favorite natural wonders: the hot spring cauldrons. These deep pools of intense blue are ringed by colorful mineral deposits…just absolutely beautiful. We even saw a couple of small geysers…lotsa coolness in just one place. So the crew didn’t exactly know the entire team decided to stop to see all this…turns out they were frantically wondering where all the cyclists went…whoops! But we all got back on track in no time.Further down we passed more hot springs with their characteristic rust-colored mineral deposit rings….some even had cool flows of water coming off them creating pathways of the beautiful rust color.
Finally got to see some wildlife!! Several times we passed male Bison just hanging out near the road…turns out these big boys are loners when its not mating seasons. Toward the end of the ride we hit some traffic as tons of people were hopping out of their cars to snap pics of a grizzly bear mom and her two cubs…what an awesome sight. They started to come really close to the road which made for great pics…but also had moms frantically telling their kids “get back in the car in case we need to get moving fast!!!” Kinda hilarious.
We were all just having a grand old time with the ride…just about 15 miles to go…when it turns out that we were crossing the continental divide not once but twice! So after two killer climbs we got some shots by the big divide sign…then finally pulled into Grant Village, a set of really nice lodges that put us up for the night…it’s a real treat to have a bed and your own bathroom (even with 4 big dudes per room)!After cleaning up we went and grabbed dinner at the “Lakehouse” restaurant which gave us all-you-can-eat pasta and pizza…good stuff.
We still had plenty of hours of light (gotta love summertime) so most of the guys headed over to see Old Faithful. Our van got there just 2 minutes late so we had to wait another hour and 15 minutes before the next eruption (she’s only somewhat faithful these days), but we made the best of it hitting up the gift shops and whatnot. Finally at 8:15 on the dot the old gal did her thing…shooting water about 150 feet in the air…pretty spectacular sight! After about 4 minutes of gushing she was all done so we packed back into the vans and rolled off (necessary sidenote: on the way out we were treated to one of the most beautiful sky scenes ever…sun just looked amazing behind the clouds with rays beaming out in all directions)After getting back to the lodges most of us took advantage of the sweet digs and crashed out early in the beds. Great day….and I get to see mom and dad tomorrow!!
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