A thing happened on the July 4th weekend...

[KLSymph]

I went to Yellowstone!



Yellowstone is a big, big place.  It takes hours just to drive around, and you need days to explore most of it, much less all of it.  There are scenic views of forests, lakes, mountains, all that good stuff.

Yellowstone is a geothermally active area.  There are hot springs, geysers, and steam vents in the ground.  One of these places is the Mud Volcano.







It's a pool of bubbling liquid that looks much like what I'd imagine boiling concrete to be.  It doesn't smell great, but it's not as strong as the Dragon's Mouth nearby. In the past, the volcano actually spewed stuff upward for two years before collapsing into what it is now.  That's what the tourism sign says, but then according to Wikipedia, this isn't an actual mud volcano as geologists classify it, so what do I know?

Wait, if you look really carefully....



Buffalo!

Yessir, Yellowstone has roaming buffalo.  Formally called bison, these wonderful creatures can be found sleeping and grazing in quite a few places around the park.

Let me get closer.


Moving to just past the end of this boardwalk.



Aww, look at you!  Come on out of those bush-tree things while I switch to a better camera.



It's so cute!  The reason that light patch on the bison's rear is slightly fuzzy is because it just did a barrel roll in the dust and got back up again.  Yes, on the hill!



And now it just rubbed its head in the needle tree above it. Just full on stuck its face in there and foom foom foom. Look at that poofy hair and beard.  D'awwwww.



And now it just stood there and took big ol' poo.


Bam!

Oh, nature.  Why do you lose your magic so quick--



...Wait.  Why are you looking at me like that.  Are you trying to come downhill?  Are you charging?  Is it charging? Oh god it's speeding up--



MAD BUFFALO!  MAD BUFFALO!





"Oh crap! Oh crap!"
-- KLSymph





TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES



PLEASE WAIT.



PLEASE WAIT.



Yellowstone wishes to remind visitors that bison cause more injury to tourists per year than all other wildlife combined, including its bears and wolves.







*pant*

*pant*

What happened?  Am I okay?  I don't think I got hit, since my soft human body hasn't exploded against a thousand pounds of angry bison.



Oh, there it is.  Good thing I veered right.  Just goes to show that TVTropes Will Save Your Life.

Anyway, there are herds and herds of bison in Yellowstone, and sometimes they'll cross roads and block traffic.


For example.

In this case, that lighter-colored calf on the left stayed on the road so long that a park ranger had to make us drive past it with inches to spare, because a line of cars a mile long was backed up behind us.  But we didn't want to hit the horn because I suspect each of those adults alone weighed as much as our subcompact rental car.

Yellowstone.  It's worth a visit.  Try to enter through as many of its entrances as possible, because there are scenic drives to the park itself too (many of them separate national parks themselves).  And do take the time to hike if you can.


Yellowstone Canyon North Rim, Upper Falls

























Ten minutes later...





Look at him.  Just chilling by the hot spring.  Not a care in the world.

Well, you know what?

Spoiler: ShowHide

$37 Bison tenderloin (medium rare) from Buck's T-4 Lodge in Big Sky, Montana.

OM NOM NOM REVENGE NOM.



Joke disclaimer: Actually, I had the tenderloin two days before meeting that bison.  So it's less revenge nom and more karmic justice.

[Brian]

Excellent travelogue, as always.

[thepanda]

When Bison use psycho-crusher you should counter.

[KLSymph]

I haven't played SF in a pretty long time.  Is there a counter mechanic these days?  Heck, if I could parry & riposte that bison, I would've!

I guess I should've buttstabbed it instead.

[Dracos]

Yellowstone is one of my favorite national parks.  It's really a pleasure to head through.

[Yuthirin]

This was hilarious!

[KLSymph]

This was hilarious!

Good to hear it.

Yellowstone is one of my favorite national parks.  It's really a pleasure to head through.

I also got to see the Old Faithful geyser (still faithful).  Unfortunately, the Grand Prismatic Spring was a bit of a letdown, because the tourism photos have you expecting to see:



But when I got there I saw a whole lot of:


Curse you, nature.  You ruin everything.

But I also had the chance to drive through South Dakota and Wyoming.  I visited Mt. Rushmore, where I learned that you cannot in fact bungee jump from the Presidents' noses there.


Does not happen.

And on the way back, I drove through the middle of the night at 80 mph on the dark and silent interstate with no other cars on the road.  I even followed a thunderstorm, caught up with it, and went through it, and came out the other side, over the course of an hour.

And then it caught up!  Then I outraced it again.

Truly, it combined the nail-biting tension of storm chasing with the peerless excitement of Desert Bus.

[Brian]

Truly, it combined the nail-biting tension of storm chasing with the peerless excitement of Desert Bus.

Truly, man cannot envision something requiring faster reflexes and a simultaneous attention to detail ... than Desert Bus.

Those pictures are awesome.

Now take another vacation somewhere amazing so I can vicariously enjoy it through your photographs!

Please. ;)

[KLSymph]

You must go yourself, and find your own stories and jokes!  And tell them to us!  For free!

I do have other pictures from my Italy trip (specifically, I didn't go to just Italy, but also Istanbul and Athens on a cruise), but they don't really fit into a coherent set of jokes.  If you're interested, I can just go through my old vacation pics and pull out some interesting ones.

[Brian]

I just have Alaska.  I should probably upload those ice sculpture pictures.

Only six months late. ._.

[Dracos]

You should share them :)

I've never been to Athens or Istanbul :)