Yellowstone

I had a beautiful survey above Jardine which is above Gardiner which is at the northern entrance to Yellowstone Park.

Above Jardine

Next morning I had a survey in West Yellowstone, so, after my survey above Jardine I got to drive through the park.

This is Gardiner, Montana. The Yellowstone River comes out of that gorge on the far left. You can just see the line of cars at the entrance to the park above the left margin of town. 

A spring under this hill has bubbled up 170 F water for thousands of years. As the water cools, it deposits calcium carbonate - the white stuff. The rock created by layers of calcium carbonate is called travertine, and this is known as a travertine terrace. Algae living in the warm pools tint the travertine brown, orange, red, and green. Because of the constant flow of water and accumulation of calcium carbonate, the terrace is always changing. 

Mammoth has the largest travertine terrace in the world. 

And who lives on the terrace and works the warm pools for meals? Killdeer and their babies. 

The 55-mile drive through the northwest corner of the park took all afternoon because of traffic and the constant temptation to pull over and gaze in awe.

The idea of taking cars out of Yellowstone and replacing them with busses has been around since I was a kid: to protect wildlife from collisions, save the roads, reduce air and noise pollution. They have busses instead of cars in Denali and Zion and it works great - I imagine a fun project for Tesla. 

Also, it would improve the experience for people. Every time I stopped, I heard people yelling at their kids to "Get out of the car, now!" Or yelling at each other, "I told you to think about that before!" Nobody realizes that visiting Yellowstone in July will be so stressful because of traffic.