Yellowstone - Day 1

I pulled into Yellowstone late this afternoon, after what was a very eventful and exciting drive across Montana.  Anyone who ever said video games are bad for you and you shouldn't play them, has never attempted to drive across the back roads of Montana late at night doing 70+ miles an hour.  LOL

It was an adventure to say the least, and felt like a real life game of Mario Kart or something.  Nothing gets your adrenalin pumping like coming around a corner and suddenly in the dark seeing two huge moose standing right on the shoulder of the road, or the deer that was in the middle of the road that came out of nowhere, and that's not mentioning the huge porcupine, a few other deer that were polite enough to wait for me to pass before trying to cross the road, and some animal that I can't even begin to guess at what it was, but just know that somehow I swerved just enough to have it pass by my driver's side mirror by a few inches.   It was almost 4 hours of just waiting for the next animal to come out of the dark so I could swerve at the last minute yet again.  :)

I think the last time I was in Yellowstone was when I was 11 or 12 years old. I had forgotten about the smells that come out of the ground here, until I stopped at Mammoth Hot Springs.  It'll certainly get your attention and turn you off of eggs for at least a few days.

Lower Terrace of Mammoth Hot Springs

You can't see it in this photo, but the water coming out of the ground is very hot, and full of minerals which are what create these cool structures as they are deposited above ground.  Any tree that happens to be in the area, is killed off.  The whole area if full of trees like this that were killed by either the heat or minerals in the water, or both maybe?  It creates a very alien looking landscape.