To our dismay, it turns out that 7 a.m. does not count as dawn. Not even close. Now that we're home and have access to internets, it turns out that sunrise at Yellowstone (today) was at 5:36 a.m. and dawn was at 4:59 a.m. Plus we didn't check ahead of time that the road to Lamar Valley (through Dunraven Pass) would be open. It wasn't. Seriously stupid.
Should. Have. Gone. With. Dusk.
So instead, we drove, all sleepy-eyed, out to the opposite corner of Yellowstone, the Mammoth Hot Springs area. I remember telling Kasandra that while Eric Hutchinson, Jack Johnson, and Jason Mraz were all very nice, her mellow-licious iPod was not going to cut it that morning (no offense).
I've wanted to see Mammoth Hot Springs ever since I wrote my science report about Yellowstone National Park in sixth grade. If you search for pictures of Mammoth Hot Springs online, you'll see lovely photos of colorful, delicate, glistening mineral formations. I spent the long drive hyping this up to my slightly-cranky and sleep-deprived family. Imagine my disappointment, when I found out that the springs have been dry for quite some time now!
But all was not lost. Some of the springs still had water. Here's one with a pretty bacterial mat, which I touched despite the copious "do not touch" signs. (Rest assured, I made sure a little boy dipped his hand in first, to make sure it was safe.)
Once again, however, we saw the best stuff last.
For lunch, we were seriously sick of lodge cafeteria food, so we drove out to Gardiner, MT, to see what we could find. One of the locals recommended that we try the Cowboy Lodge and Grill, which just opened up last week and served delicious BBQ (the real kind, with a smoker).
After lunch, as you might expect, everyone had major food coma. But just when we least expected it, on the road between Mammoth Hot Springs and Roosevelt-Tower, we saw TWO MORE BEARS!! And a bighorn sheep!
Then, ironically enough, we finally made it to Lamar Valley and saw no animals. (Well, no animals except buffalo, which we'd seen plenty of already.) But the valley was very pretty!
We drove home via the now-open Dunraven Pass (it opened at 9 a.m., go figure), and had dinner at the Fishing Bridge cafeteria (more burgers and hot dogs...uh, yum).
I digress now to discuss the following depressing display at the gift shop.
Mugs for kiddies. When I was growing up, I could never find my name, because it was so popular that it always ran out. And now, I can't get one because nobody is naming baby girls Jennifer anymore. All the trendy names, like Jaden, McKenzie, etc. were there, but no Jennifer! I realized with horror what was happening.
I'm going to be the Gertrude of the 80s.
According to babynameshub.com:
Girls Named Jennifer
This chart illustrates how many Girls were named Jennifer in the U.S. since 1880.
On that note, we all went to bed at 8:30 p.m., well before official dusk at 9:42 p.m.
4 comments:
ha. I am in opposite land. I could never find Charlotte stuff because no one named their little girls Charlotte. Last I checked though, Charlotte was in the top 100 somewhere, so I bet a lot of places have it now (but I'm too old to want tacky theme park useless nick nacks with my name on it).
Yeah, it's smart of them to keep up with the current most popular kid names.
You should have a timeless name like John. The only name popular enough to be visible on the fully-zoomed out view of boy's names at http://www.babynamewizard.com/voyager ! (Well, until they added the 2009 data, apparently. Seems to have finally dropped off now.)
Hm, I can't get that site to work John...do you need IE? Still, that's a good idea. If I changed my name to John, I'd always be able to buy tacky souvenirs with my name AND feel unique because there are no other girls named John.
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