WestCoast 9 : Raw Yellowstone
After Las Vegas we drove to Yellowstone - America’s first National Park. It has unique thermal features like hot springs and geysers (only to be found here, in Iceland or in Australia on this planet) and has tremendous ecological importance. I have attended some lectures while I was at Princeton on research done on the eco-system at Princeton and the bacterial mats found there (oh, and free lunch accompanied the lecture, too…).
Yellowstone is vast and feels much more rough and raw. More like nature intended it. One of the treats to the park is the ever increasing numbers of visitors, but you wouldn’t know it in the park. Sanne and I did one 10 miles hike (I’m very proud I finished it) and we saw a total of two (2) people on the trails in total - while the hike took us 5 hours. Two people in five hours! Not really crowded, no.
Together with Highway 1 from Monterey southwards, Yellowstone was probably the most impressive thing we have seen this holiday. The park has beautiful hills and we saw amazing wildlife, among which Bison (loads!), Moose, Elk, Deer, Wolves, Pronghorn and special Swans. Very very impressive.
It was a 2 day drive getting there and a 2 day drive going back to San Francisco but is was definitely worth getting there for 5 days. As I was saying everywhere all holiday long to Sanne : “We don’t have anything like this in the Netherlands”. “True”, said Sanne in Yellowstone.