A Map and a Mustang: More watery stuff and four-legged animals

Sunday was a pretty big day for us in terms of sight-seeing! We managed to cover a lot of ground and even worked in some time for Jane to be silly (not really silly though, just a little). As such, this post will mostly be touristy pictures! Sorry to those of my readers who are more interested in the insane things that happen to me - I'm sure the craziness will start up again soon.

We headed north, stopping first by Grand Prismatic on our way up before too many people got there. It's a truly incredible rainbow-colored pool - we had the pleasure of getting to see the reflections of its myriad of colors in the steam rising off of the surface because the morning was chilly.

One of the old Yellowstone tour buses in the parking lot

Steam from the geysers in the cool morning air

Steam coming off Grand Prismatic reflecting the colors of the waters below

Sand pipers hunting for bugs in the springs

We also took the Firehole Scenic Drive, which runs along the Firehole River for a few miles. It was absolutely lovely but I didn't get to see as much as I would have liked as I had to concentrate on the road! There were a lot of potholes and people walking around, both of which I tried (fairly successfully) to avoid.

Firehole Falls

From there it was across to the eastern side of the park to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone! My dad offered to drive across the park so I could "spectate", which ended up working out terribly as there was literally nothing to see on the road we took. So I just looked at trees without a steering wheel in my hands for 30 minutes instead of looking at trees with a steering wheel in my hands for 30 minutes. But that was okay. At this point my dad felt the need to point out that the brakes were... not so great. Not fading, just not biting well at all like they did a couple thousand miles ago when the pads were newly bedded in. So we pulled into the Canyon Village service station and asked the techs to take a look.

They were nice guys and looked at the rotors through the wheels and concluded that they were glazed, which was contributing to the poor brake performance. Also contributing was a somewhat spongy pedal. So they went to pull her into the bay to bleed the brakes for me to at least help a little bit until I can get the rotors turned. The tech revved up the engine... and it died. Started again, revved up the engine, died. Repeat process many times as I alternated between concern ("This hasn't happened before, why is she stalling, what is going on, AHHHHH MY CAR") and amusement ("This is what Jane does to me all the time. Guess she must not like the tech"). Finally they eased her into the bay and I settled on feeling amusement as she continued to jab at these poor guys. Despite multiple bleedings, the brake pedal would sporadically range in the amount of pumps it took to build pressure (first 4, then 2, then 1, then 3, then 2). I took the opportunity to check up on the semi-squashed fuel lines while Jane toyed with the techs. Imagine my surprise when I found my tank vent sideways again (why?), my fuel filter hanging out of its bracket (how??), and one of the muffler brackets halfway unscrewed (huh???). So I fixed all of that and by that time the techs had called it quits and said "this is as good as we're going to be able to get it", which I found perfectly acceptable for people working on my car who aren't Chas (the only person I have found who has been able to make things work on this car on the first try, ever). They charged me a minimal amount of money and sent me on my way (very nice of them as they spent quite a while messing with the brakes trying to get them bled).

Oh, and I had no stalling problems at all when I left. Guess Jane just didn't like the tech - these things happen, frequently. Jane likes no one. But maybe she likes me just a little bit now, because she hauled my butt around all day with not a single complaint.

Anyways, the Yellowstone version of the Grand Canyon hosts two huge waterfalls, creatively named Upper Falls and Lower Falls. We took Jane on both the North Rim and the South Rim drive (both are pretty short) and got some great shots of the falls. So here's a couple:

Lower Falls

An interesting shot of a tree and a rainbow in the mist behind it

Yes, this is actually a real picture... holy cow! Fantastic rainbow and landscape

We ended the day up at the Canyon Village Campground. Jane, it turns out, is a pretty excellent campingmobile. Not only did she house all of my stuff, but she also conveniently provided local campers with a great conversation piece. One of them wandered over and introduced himself - an Aston Martin mechanic out of London with a secret passion for old Fords (imagine that). We shot the breeze for quite a long time with him and his family before dinnertime. Great end to a great day!

For whatever reason these beetles are constantly on / in my car.

Who needs RVs?

Delicious foil food.

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Today (Monday) was a rather spectacular but traffic-filled day. We took the road south through Hayden Valley in hopes of seeing some wildlife. Boy did we ever. So here's a bunch of pictures of bison, which are undoubtedly exactly the same as all of the pictures that the other hundred thousand tourists in the area were taking.

Fun fact: bison cannot roll over because of the hump on their backs. But it's really funny to see them try.

When a bison wants to stand somewhere, it cannot be moved - not without getting horns in your guts, at least. Because of this traffic was constantly stopped due to bison deciding that the best place to stand was in the road. It must have been backed up a good few miles. But it provided an opportunity for a lot of bison-watching (and even better, people-watching).

Or, even more interesting, car-watching.

Eventually we made it down to West Thumb Geyser Basin, which was extraordinarily beautiful and not so bison-filled. What makes West Thumb unique from all of the other geyser basins in the park is its location in proximity to Lake Yellowstone - a lake so giant that it makes its own weather and even has waves and beaches like an ocean. West Thumb is full of hot springs and cone-type geysers, both of which are super cool:

The edges of the pools are the most interesting with tons of different colors

A "fishing cone" (one of several on the beach) - hot enough to cook your fresh fish in!

Underwater cone

Baby fish hanging out inside one of the underwater cones where it's nice and warm.

Regardless of the beauty of the area, we had to move on back to Old Faithful (I swear I've done nearly a thousand miles of driving around this park in the past week). We were to stay at one of the cabins at the Old Faithful Lodge. When we got there we were totally surrounded by bikers, which was great - usually they're lots of fun and they're very respectful of your vehicles. They of course had to come over to talk cars and we found out they were an Australian biker gang in the area for Sturgis. Let me tell you... if you think you can understand Australian accents, I'd believe it. But if you think you can understand Australian bikers, I'd call you a liar. I think it's pretty impossible unless you are yourself an Australian biker. I got most of what they were saying though and we had a good chat!

Anyways, that's it for tonight - moving on to the rest of Yellowstone's main attractions tomorrow and then that'll be it for us! Kelly signing out.