Extremophiles

July 1: When I awoke Mrs. F was gone. We had split the two cabins we had between boys and girls - it follows that I was in the girl cabin. I listened at the boys door and heard nothing, so I assumed that they slept on. I snuck up to the main hotel to try and locate a Wi-Fi signal and a decent cup of Earl Grey. I got neither, but I did eat a yummy buffet breakfast of French Toast, Egg Souffle, Bacon, Cheese Blintz, and Fruit. Feeling mildly guilty that I ate so well while I tried to justify my time alone. Turns out, the boys were at the General Store Diner gorging themselves on pancakes - so I was justified.

When the girls finally awoke, Emily realized she had missed the Eclipse premiere and groused about her unfair life. I bought her a USA Today so she could read the bad review. She pronounced them all wrong. We rounded everyone up and headed toward Mammoth Springs. On the way we spotted a male Elk with a huge rack. Then we saw a large crowd stopped by the stream - it had to be something really good. We learned that there was a carcass in the stream and that a bear had just fed from it. That bear had taken off, leaving the rest for a wolf. We did our best to photograph the wolf from a distance. The rest of our drive to Mammoth Springs we encountered, for the first time, the crowds for which Yellowstone is famous. "Fudgies" as Charles calls them, forgetting that we too are tourists.

Upon arrival at Mammoth we decided to hike up and view the springs from above - away from the crowds. Although, no one was too excited about another hike, we started upward. We passed a beautiful group of Elk, some fawn with spots still, and a delightful stream filled with wild flowers. This hike, although short (1 mile) included a rapid 380 ft elevation within .5 mile. I protested. It was going the wrong direction and I refused to hike aimlessly. I was quite happy to dwell on the boardwalks with the other fudgies. So we split up. I agreed to a brief (.5) hike to see the beaver ponds (devoid of beaver I might add, I was becoming bitter) and then hit the boardwalk. Charles and my boys proceeded upward in search of the perfect view of the springs.

We met up with the boys on the boardwalk. They had indeed made it up to the top of the springs - but only after crossing a layer of hydrothermal crust - discovered by Sam when he yelled "Hey Dad, I think there is boiling water under here". Charles' excuse upon rebuke? There was no sign.

The Hot Springs were spectacular - and fascinating. The discovery of the "thermophiles" that live there actually led to the research that created DNA mapping. NASA carried out a lot of that research. In fact, Mrs. F knew one of the researchers who worked on extremophiles. The connection between early life forms, possible alien life forms, and extremophiles was thrilling to the kids and led to an endless stream of questions which I felt ill prepared to answer. I mumbled something about 5 toed cats and tried to make a connection.

After a picnic we made a quick trip to Gardiner, Montana so I could say I'd been to Montana and Mrs. F could check out her cousin's art gallery. I spotted a coyote on the way back to Yellowstone, adding to my list of wildlife finds. We had fancy dinner reservations, so we headed back. As we passed the carcass we had seen earlier, we could see a wolf swimming toward the carcass which was now being grazed upon by a black bear. If we hadn't had reservations, we might have seen quite a fight. We topped the evening off with another wolf sighting as we approached Lake Village.

Dinner was a wonderful Bison Tenderloin, poached pear salad and adult company. A welcome change. The evening was spent packing for our early departure for Lander, WY where we would hike into the wilderness for 5 days of back country camping and fishing. The boys did play one last game of buffalo baseball.