Yellowstone, Day 3

Tuesday 8/14

Day 3 in Yellowstone

First of all, a few things from yesterday.  Nils noticed a set of grandparents openly fretting about whether their grandson's stitches were splitting open (on his way to dump some garbage).  He volunteered my nursing services and I figured out that he just had a thin streak of blood on his face, not an open area.  Phew.  Then we got to talking….as soon as I heard the grandmother's name was Hilde, I knew she had to be German (I already suspected from her accent).  I asked her where she was from, and she said, "oh, this little town you've probably never heard of, called Bad Kreuznach".  I startled her with my amazed yelling, since that is my mother's home town.  Her maiden name was Kiefer---NOT the Café Kiefer family, though.  She recognized the Klapdohr name and we had fun reminiscing about BK.  Isn't that an amazing coincidence?!

Secondly, Nils accused me all last week of being obsessed with the motorcyclists.  Well, he has an obsession too, namely the Mennonite campers we've encountered several times in the last two weeks.  He says he's just interested.  To me, it looks more like stalking.  Just wanted you to know.

Since we had such a Herculean hike yesterday we decided to take it a little easier today.  Started things off with a bike ride and a hike to the "Natural Bridge".  

PHOTO 09 Lisa in front of the Natural Bridge

Very close by, modest in size.  In the 1880s when it was first discovered, hikers were allowed to walk over it.  Now it's protected from that abuse, but we got very close to it from either side.  Back to the RV for a little relaxation and starting a puzzle=building project for an hour or so.

THEN, we embarked on a kayaking adventure, since we paid for these fancy permits and hadn't used them yet.    Not too far from our campsite is the West Thumb Geyser Basin….we found a spot to put in, from a turnout along the road, and paddled for the steamy shores not too far away.  Because we were approaching from the water, we could get incredibly close to the bubbling cauldrons and spouting mini=geysers with their boiling hot runoff into the lake.

PHOTO 12 Nils kayaking along geothermal area

We had it all to ourselves….Green clear water, bright sunshine, gentle breeze.  We even went ashore at one point and got very close

PHOTO 25 Geyser -- This is what it looked like on shore