15 May 2025 4 min read

remarks from the road 3

Hello from Yellowstone National Park, esteemed subscribers!

The wifi and signal here is limited so I have finally met my match. I got a little too comfortable in Badlands with all that great cell signal but Yellowstone is somehow a true return to nature.

America’s first national park has been amazing — with most of our stops being centered around the wonderful-smelling sulfur pits but definitely have a few that are show stoppers.

mammoth hot springs

Esteemed subscriber and elite cross-country driver Noah Curran and I took in the sulfuric fumes as rain started to fall. We were staring at some beautiful multicolored sulfur deposits left behind by the bubbling underwater ... springs?

This was a fun first excursion as it got my legs moving a little more after sitting in the car for a while.

the grand canyon of yellowstone

With a long and grandiose name like that, there was no way it could not live up to its name.

Looking out over the canyon and the falls from Artist Point, I could see why they said it transcended all beauty. The grand falls crashed into the multicolored valley, with the dark orange and green reminding me heavily of the National Park Service color scheme.

We also got the added bit that it was snowing (not enough to affect Noah’s driving), so we were rewarded with some dustings all around.

grand prismatic spring

A strange letdown — turns out when you go to see things in pools when it’s around 30-40 F steam is a problem with visibility.

It was still pretty beautiful in person, but I had a hard time capturing it on my camera!

old faithful

Awkward moment — I almost made us miss this. Almost, because Noah took back the reins and directed us back towards the geyser. Where we proceeded to stand and wait for maybe close to 10 minutes after the specified time?

Several times it sputtered. Is that it? I thought. Could that be all?

A few seconds later the geyser burst and held a constant stream for 2 and a half straight minutes.

west thumb

West thumb, the western bit of water connected to Yellowstone Lake, was apparently the result of an explosion! As a result the shore seems to be filled with a lot of geothermal pools, including this stunning one.

Yeah. Stinky, but cool. Cool, despite stinky? Very cool. It was very jarring seeing some tourists being super lax around them given the fact that accidentally dipping your foot in one will result in a lack of foot for the rest of our life.

To be totally honest the colors were not this spectacular with my own eyes but HEEYYYY who's keeping track haha everyone does this haha. If you want some realism feast your eyes upon the mud volcano.

animals

Bear! Bison! Elk! Gopher! SO MANY ANIMALS. Once again — not sure why people were getting so close to the animals. It was super awesome to see a grizzly bear in person though — to its credit it seemed to be ignoring the huge crowd on the side of the road. The bison definitely made it hard to ignore them, walking through the gas station and really just minding their own business.