wed august 20 Old Faithful

Woke up freezing in the middle of the night. Had gone to bed with all the windows open and a light cover only to find that it was 38° by four in the morning. Of course my 10 below sleeping bag was in the car so I layered up with sweatshirts and jackets and fleece lined pants. Got a cover for Sheba and got back to sleep. At the crack of dawn, I could hear cars on the main road already out hunting a sighting of elk, buffalo orr maybe even bear. I had a 9;30 patient and no Internet so I figured that if I hurried onto old faithful that certainly there would be a major tourist attraction and Internet. The problem was so many fascinating things along the way and then I saw a giant plume of smoke in the distance and thought oh my gracious a forest fire. I wonder if I should continue on this road. Around the next bend however I was greeted with at least 10 other plumes of so-called smoke and then it dawned on me I was in Geyser country and that wasn't smoke, It's steam from some very hot water. There are very frequent cut outs along the road so you can pull over to watch wildlife or steaming meadows, but I couldn't daudle too long ofver a buffalo almost in the middle of the road as I needed to get down to old faithful. I arrived to a humongous parking lot, which was essentially empty, so I got to park very near the geyser viewing area and the visitor center, which turned out to be very handy as dogs are not allowed in any buildings or near the geyser. My GPS began to work, thank goodness a few miles from old faithful but my personal hotspot nor patriot mobile still seemed to have no connectivity. Other Wi-Fi showed the bear spray company in a little Yurt as having a Internet and as I wanted to learn about bear safety anyway so my first stop was to meet a delightful young man from Ecuador, who was manning the bear spray education center which they also rented.out . He showed me a video about what to do if I encountered a bear and how to use the bear spray when I told him I had a Byrna which was supposed to be as good if not better .So no I didn't need to buy any bear spray, as I didn't plan to go hiking alone or even with a little dog anyway, He gave me the password for his Internet, which worked beautifully from my car, , but didn't reach as far as the viewing benches for Old Faithful. The visitor center has a billboard showing you the predicted time for the geyser to spout give or take 10 minutes which proved to be reasonably accurate so I got my first of three different viewings of an exciting one to three minutes of pure beauty as water shot hundred to 150 feet into the air to a crowd of several hundred tourists from all over the world. Realizing that hundreds of people have been viewing this amazing site every approximate 90 minutes at least for the summer months for over 150 years. Over1 million views per year. The geyser may have been spewing it guts unobservered however they think for over 40,000 years.

I happened upon a Ranger guided tour of the lower basin which gave me a much greater understanding of all the geothermal activities in the greatest active caldera( it's called), not only in the world, but in the solar system.. That means the hot magma from the center of the Earth is closest to the Earth crust right here under my feet and anywhere else on this planet or any other. How they know that is beyond me. They kick me out of the visitor center with all its fascinating exhibit at 8 o'clock, but I hope to return tomorrow to see some of the movies and finish the exhibit and besides, they have coffee.

I have found a quiet little spot behind some cabins away from the obvious parking lot to bed down for the night feeling truly grateful for this beautiful and fascinating world that the good Lord has given us and that I am privileged to explore.