Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Snow, In May?


When packing for the west coast, I thought to myself, "what do I need for the summer?" Pants...check, suit...check, swinmtrunks...check. Apparently I forgot one of the most necessary articles of clothing for a summer in LA, an Alaskan certified winter parka.

We awoke this morning to the sight of snow. Thats right flakes of white gold falling from the sky. However, while gold makes you rich, snow makes you ridiculously cold. All day, throughout our trek in Yellowstone National Park it snowed.

Unwilling to let this dramatic weather affect our plans, we plowed forth (see how I used a pun there). Most of the day involved the visitation of various "hot springs." Apparently, Yellowstone is one giant volcano. As such, many of the vents on the mountain heat the earth to over 170degrees creating flowing rivers of sulfuric acid.

For those of you who dont recognize the name "sulfuric acid" its the stuff that you smell when eggs go bad. This led me to believe that Yellowstone must be the smelliest national park in the land.

Once we overcame the noxious odors spweing forth onto this park, we decided that we should get some food to eat (I'm not entirely sure why bad smells and food go together, but they do.

Following lunch (which included an amazing chicken-rice soup that managed to increase our body temperatures to only 10 degrees below normal), we proceeded to see every other hot spring and geiser in the park.

After leaving the park, we stopped off for some really good micro-brewed beer and BBQ. Fun Fact: People in Montana seems to love Tabbouleh (this was the side dish at dinner, and I still can't explain why Tabbouleh of all foods).

Another great day came to a close, and now time to rest up for the next part of our great adventure.

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