6/21-6/26

It's been a busy week. I drove up to Yellowstone NP Monday, spent the night in West Yellowstone and came home Tuesday. Two days is a minimum if you really want to to see the park good and maybe take a hike or two. It's really crowded; major traffic jams with wildlife watchers, especially if a bear happens to come into view. It's hard to find a parking place at some of the points of interest, and I bet there were 5000 people gathered around Old Faithful to see the eruption. Even with all of the crowds, I would like to go back before I leave the area -- maybe in September. I've included some pictures of Yellowstone.

Old Faithful

I found out an interesting tidbit about Old Faithful - it's not so faithful. I always thought it went off every 60 minutes. One of the regulars in the visitor's center said it went off every 90 minutes. The fact is that the interval between eruptions varies from 55 to 95 minutes based on the duration of the last eruption.

Bubbling Hot Springs

Steaming Hills

Mystic Falls

Today (Thursday 6/24) was a fun day. I went on patrol with one of the Forest Service employees in the fire department. We went around to some of the remote areas in Bridger-Teton National Forest in 4-wd fire (brush) truck checking on back country campgrounds, people cutting firewood in the forest and other patrol activities. I actually got to pull some hose, operate a pump and squirt some water. It's amazing how people will go off an leave a smoldering fire. That is a real no-no to the Forest Service. If we found an unattended fire that was the least bit warm, we would give it a good soaking. If you could determine who has left the fire unattended, they would be given a nice ticket. It was really a great day, the weather was perfect, we went into some beautiful country and I definitely plan on doing it again. The ranger is also trying to get me a day with the river patrol. That would be neat also.

Back to work tomorrow.