DAY 255 WEDNESDAY 21st MAY 2008

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming (Miles to Date: 25900)

Much of Yellowstone Park is at around 8000 feet in elevation, resulting in long, hard winters. You might hope that in the latter days of May one might be safe from the ravages of winter – no such luck. Even as we raise ourselves from our slumbers we are greeted by snow falling – not to be deterred from our Yellowstone experience we head off back towards to the Old Faithful Inn, buoyed by the thought of a hot buffet breakfast. Fighting the elements we get to our culinary destination, which really sets us up for the day. After breakfast we decide to go and revisit our friend Old Faithful. Standing there in the cold, with the snow falling, waiting for the old girl (if you could sex a geyser this one would in our opinion be of the gentle sex) to go up was a surreal experience. Strangely enough we are not the only people crazy enough to be standing there, and we get chatting to a young Californian couple. The inclement weather brings out the war spirit of the crowd and we offer each other the moral support to get us through this waiting period. Unfortunately whilst Old Faithful goes up every 90 minutes or so there is a range of times between eruptions and on this particular occasion we are the very end of the spread of these times – so we wait wondering what was going on, had the weather frozen the tap shut!!! Needless to say Old Faithful ultimately does not let us down and up she went, her jet looking like some giant subterranean whale’s spout. The mist and snow make visibility poor so the spectacle is somewhat disappointing – and as soon as it is over we head back to the Inn to warm up and pick up some souvenirs.

We decided to take a different route back to Fishing Village, via Canyon Village. As we transverse the road to Canyon Village we come across a number of cars parked on the side of the road with people outside. This is a good sign of wildlife close to the road – so we hurriedly pull over to see what is going on. As we wait we see through the snow, which is falling thickly now, two wolves calmly walking down the road. These shy creatures are typically hard to get to close to and we are amazed when they pass no more than 10 feet from where we parked. Of course we snap away as they come by.

So excitedly we leave our wolves and head off to Canyon Village. Here we park up and go to the Visitor Centre, a two storey building dedicated to the geology of Yellowstone. There are exhibits of the volcanic nature of Yellowstone – it is one of the largest volcanoes in world. Volcanic eruptions have occurred several times in the past, and the last eruption was some 600,000 years ago, creating a 35 mile caldera, and throwing dust high into the atmosphere and covering much of the United States with dust. Yellowstone is still an active volcanic area and another eruption could occur anytime. Other exhibits show the impact of seismic activity, which goes hand-in-hand with volcanoes. This Visitor Centre is a great place to spend some time, especially on a wet or snowy day like this.

We retreat back to our motor home, with the snow still falling heavily. Next to us is another motor home with an English couple, Sean and Jackie from Gloucester. Over our stay we had got to know them and agreed to get together for a few drinks on our last night in Yellowstone. Leaving Jack and Emily together, which is a risky business, after about half an hour of threats we go next door. It turns out to be a bit of a drinking and chat session covering a wide range of topics, after a few hours and slightly worst for wear we return to our motor home and collapse into bed. The children were fine! They were closer to us next door then they were when in their bedrooms in New York!