At a mere 84 feet high, Gibbon Falls isn’t the tallest waterfall we’ve seen, but it’s perfectly pretty as-is.
After we finally parted ways with the Grand Prismatic Spring, our next few hours in Yellowstone were a blur of frequent stops and pervasive wonders. Each point of interest had its highlights, but few of them have enough photos to merit their own individual, full-length galleries. Honestly, after so many hours on the road in those surroundings, I was in danger of scenic overload.
This looks like some of my Trapper Keeper folders from junior high.
Sure, Old Faithful had the fame and Biscuit Basin had the scintillating colors, but our next literal hot spot had the hottest temperatures, the largest dimensions, and the longest line of the day. Such was the fierce competition among Yellowstone points of interest.
The heated ponds of Yellowstone: nature’s original steam engine.
Sure, Old Faithful was spiffy, but every ounce of its spewed hot water was the same ordinary color. Elsewhere in Yellowstone, organic and inorganic additives commingle in the waters to produce scintillating effects in multiple colors of the rainbow. Maybe not all of them, but quite a few. I wouldn’t have minded some purple, but the land wasn’t taking requests.
Geysers gonna gize.
It all leads up to this: our opportunity to witness the world’s most famous geyser do its thing. Old Faithful is the main event for any newcomer to Yellowstone National Park, the one feature everyone’s heard of since youth. It’s the center of the public’s average mental image of Yellowstone as just a giant, grassy plain with the one big natural water fountain in the middle. Its popularity and its predictably sporadic yet potentially time-killing nature (depending on how soon we’d arrive before the next show) made it the highest priority to check off our to-do list above all else.
One of the park’s less natural formations.
Day Five. 8:45 a.m. MDT. Primary objective reached. FINALLY.
Goats on the run from paparazzi.
Onur first visit to South Dakota’s Badlands National Park back in 2009, it was hard to stop taking photos. The same held true with our return engagement, which is why they’re getting two galleries. This one features a key difference from the other one: signs of life in the photos besides rocks, nature, and geological beauty. Animals! People! Literally signs! And more!
The Badlands on a stormy day. Somewhere within lurks a 2021 metaphor.
Show of hands: who wants an entry that contains more pictures than words? The sort of blog post you can scroll through in twenty seconds or less and still feel as though you’ve given the author an appropriate amount of attention?
…
Wow, that hurts, y’all. But maybe we can accommodate.
Please enjoy this bubbly moment of nature partially obscured by a doughy guy.
It sounds confusing but it’s perfectly simple. The city of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, is named after the waterfalls that are part of the Big Sioux River, around which local civilization sprung up. They built an entire city park around the prettiest part of the river and named it Falls Park, of course after the city’s own natural namesake. That stretch of the Big Sioux has numerous falls of varying sizes along its length. Depending on how far you walk, you can see all or merely some of those falls and enjoy natural beauty in a portion size of your choosing. If you’re short on time, a falls sampler is better than no falls at all.
Also, if you saw a limited portion of the falls and felt you’d seen enough, and nobody had the unsolicited courtesy of mind-reading skills to run up and tell you, “But wait! There’s more!” you might get all the way home from vacation, let three months pass by, revisit your photos, compare them to online resources, and then discover you missed the best parts of the park.
Not that we’re bitter.
Longtime MCC readers may recall I’m not great at identifying pretty flowers. This might be a thistle? the ones in Skyrim are flatter.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
For the past several years my wife Anne and I have made a tradition of going somewhere — anywhere but home — for each of our birthdays. Last year my birthday trip was among the billions of traditions ruined by the pandemic, all of which paled in significance to the millions of lives lost (and still counting). This year is a different story. Anne and I have each received our pairs of Pfizer shots and reached full efficacy as of April 24th. This past Friday and Saturday the two of us drove out of Indianapolis and found a few places to visit in our eminently imitable road-trip fashion…
Lest I fixate too much on the Bob Ross Experience, Minnetrista has more to offer the Muncie community and guests like us. Their welcome center has rotated exhibits since our last visit in 2014, but their springtime outdoor decor game remains competitive.
Some people naturally know where to stage their own selfies. Other people need encouraging suggestions.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
For the past several years my wife Anne and I have made a tradition of going somewhere — anywhere but home — for each of our birthdays. Last year my birthday trip was among the billions of traditions ruined by the pandemic, all of which paled in significance to the millions of lives lost (and still counting). This year is a different story. Anne and I have each received our pairs of Pfizer shots and reached full efficacy as of April 24th. This past Friday and Saturday the two of us drove out of Indianapolis and found a few places to visit in our eminently imitable road-trip fashion…
…beginning Friday the 14th, when we headed southeast of Indianapolis to Muscatatuck National Wildlife Refuge, the oldest of Indiana’s three federal wildlife refuges. The wildlife welcome wagon was small and sedate, but we also found serenity and light exercise in and near the pretty scenery, dense woods, springtime flora, distant singing birds, reflective bodies of water, and easy trails, one of which was an ADA-compliant loop called the Turkey Trail, laid down through the greenery around the visitor center. Gentle times far from big-city life.
Midlife Crisis Crossover! 