The Ben Vacation 2015 – Shooting in the Backyard

Old Faithful - Day 2

I bet the title to this post got your attention. J  You’re going to have to wait for a few paragraphs to find out what it means (how's that for a shameless teaser; Ryan Seacrest has got nothing on me).  Since we were so close to the West Entrance of Yellowstone Park and had quickly reached the Upper Geyser Basin, I felt that we could make one more trip into the park before making our way to Cokeville with stops at the Rexburg Temple and Rigby, Idaho to visit former Elder Sheppard (Tyson since his first name has now been restored to him J).  We got up a little earlier this morning than we did yesterday and were able to break camp and stop in West Yellowstone for some breakfast items under the time limit I'd set.  The "express lane" was not in service this morning (maybe it was retired after the debacle yesterday).  There was more traffic at all the entry booths, but we still got through fairly quickly.  All day yesterday we hadn't seen any buffalo (a bit of a rare occurrence), but a small group of 3 visible buffalo (that’s all we could see from the road; there may have been more) cleared the road of the cars ahead of us as people pulled off to the side of the road and increased their potential of being gored by getting out of their cars to take pictures (it's happened several times so far this year).  With hardly anyone in front of us, we arrived at Old Faithful in good time and found out the geyser was about 10 minutes from erupting.

Beehive Geyser 2015 Version

As we were walking toward the Old Faithful viewing area, we saw another plume of water shoot into the sky.  We hurried to the boardwalk and found that the Beehive Geyser was erupting from across the way.  This same geyser shot off last year when we were walking along the boardwalk of the Upper Basin and today we got to see it from a different viewing perspective.  What I found interesting was that minutes after Beehive finished Old Faithful erupted.  I wondered aloud if she was waiting for Beehive to complete its plume so as not to be upstaged in any way. J  Since this morning was not as cold as yesterday, we got a better view of the water spout since it wasn’t enshrouded in steam.  Ben was happy to get a last look at the geyser before he leaves on his mission.  I thought it was great that we ended up with a 2-for-the-price-of-one deal.  Because the buffalo ran interference for us and we were able to arrive in time for this earlier eruption, we also had time to drive over to the Black Sand Basin to see if we would have better luck with the parking lot—thankfully, we did.

Cliff Geyser

Sunset Lake

My guess is that Black Sand Basin gets its name from volcanic, obsidian sand (like what we saw along the beach in Northern California), but I admit to not noticing any sand that qualified as “black.”  Not to say that it wasn’t there; I just didn’t see it. L  Instead of a boardwalk loop, the walkways consisted of short “jetties” that took us out to the various pools and made us backtrack to return to the main walkway.  There were several guided tours going on at the time we arrived.  They did not appear to be ranger lead (the two women heading up both groups were not wearing a park ranger's uniform).  In one instance, the leader consulted a guide book giving statistics about the geysers and pools (for example: how hot was the water; how long had the geyser been active).  I guess the people in the group had paid for these guided tours.  I would catch snippets of the things being said (sometimes enough to make it interesting), but, at the same time, these groups wouldn’t linger for too long a time; just stop long enough for either lady to give her short presentation and then move on to the next stop.  When compared to the way my family likes to soak in the sights, I’m not sure the people in these groups were getting their money’s worth.

Rexburg Temple

Emerald Pool

Some highlights from Black Sand Basin: Cliff Geyser – this geyser is one that seems to mainly bubble, gurgle and spout, but what is unique about it is, like the name states, it is located on the edge of a short cliff next to the Iron River.  Sunset Lake – because of the coolness of the morning, the amount of steam pouring off the water made it difficult to see too deep into the pool, but we were able to see the way the algae and bacteria living along the edge of the lake have contributed to its name.  Rainbow Pool is next to Sunset Lake.  Apparently, it is so called because of the rainbow colors offered along the edges and leading into the pool, but the morning steam made it even more difficult to see the water.  Emerald Pool – while the Back Basin of the Norris Geyser Basin had Emerald Spring, the Black Sand Basin has an Emerald Pool.  I'm not sure if I understand the difference between a pool and a spring.  It could be that the spring is hotter.  While the spring from yesterday got its green coloring from sulfur deposits, it appeared that this pool’s green coloring benefited from yellow bacteria growing along the edges of the water.  From what I could tell, the green color of the pool appeared deeper than that of the spring we saw yesterday. J  I did enjoy this new area, but I think it would be better to visit again in the afternoon when the heat of the day is not causing as much steam to rise into the air.  I get the feeling we would have seen some amazing colors in the water if not for the obscured view.  Having seen all that we had time to see, we returned to the car and said our good-byes to Yellowstone.  We reached the West Entrance by around 11:30 or so and found cars backed up all the way to the stop light at the edge of West Yellowstone.  With the amount of people now trying to pour into the park, we were happy we left earlier in the morning.

Our next destination was Rexburg, Idaho to see the one temple we had missed on Thursday.  Thirty years have passed since I was last in Rexburg.  After graduating from high school, I spent a year going to what was then called Ricks College—a 2-year Junior College.  After returning home from my mission, I enrolled in Dixie College (which was also a 2-year junior college back then) and completed my associates degree.  Ricks went on to become BYU-Idaho.  I never really ventured out much during my time in Rexburg.  I lived on campus in the dorms and didn't have much of a social life which didn't give me much reason to travel any farther than my room to the various classrooms (or the on campus arcade).  I think the only time I actually went into Rexburg was to see the movie 2010, the sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey.  As we drove toward the temple, it was difficult for me to make any comparisons as to the changes in town since I had no particular frame of reference, but I'm sure things are different.

Getting Ready

The temple is located across the street from the campus of the university.  The campus had undergone some changes; one of which was that my old dorm building was no longer standing.  Since it was a Saturday in the middle of July, there were several wedding parties on the grounds in various stages of picture taking (I only saw 2, but everyone else tells me there were 3).  We tried to be respectful and keep the people out of the shots we were taking with both camera and video, but it wasn't easy.  Still, we were able to get some nice pictures before leaving to meet with former Elder Sheppard and his family.  Tyson (I still have a hard time calling him by his first name ☺) finished his mission in our area as I chronicled here.  About a month later, he came back with his mom, sister and brother to visit our's and other areas he had served in during his mission.  He spent about 30 minutes with us.  While we were talking, it dawned on me that we would be driving through his home town of Rigby during our vacation.  I mentioned that we could return the favor and visit him in July.  He definitely liked the idea and gave us his phone number to confirm the date.  A few days before we left, Jennifer called to talk to him.  During the conversation, he asked her if we would like to go shoot skeet during our visit.  "Oh, I don't think we'd be able to do that," she replied and told me later that he sounded disappointed.  We were thinking that he was expecting us to go somewhere to do this shooting and it would take too long to get there, shoot the guns and return ... we found out that we were incorrect in our assessment. ☺

First Shot -- "AH!"

This was the only time that my Google map failed us.  In every other situation, we were taken right to where we needed to go; this time the map tried to send us about 5 miles away from the Sheppard's home.  Oh, well; he came on his motorcycle to rescue us after Jennifer called and told him of our predicament.  It was a lot of fun to see Tyson in his home element.  He's been home for about 6 months now; working and preparing for school.  His family is big into hunting.  As we walked into the living room, we found it full of mounted animal heads.  A pile of antlers, shed by the animals earlier in the year lay in the corner of the room.  After talking for about an hour, Tyson asked again if we had ever shot a shot gun.  I had, Ben and Isaac had during a scout outing, Jennifer had not.  He asked us if we'd like to shoot skeet and when we said we weren't sure, he replied, "We can shoot in the back yard.  Come on."  With that, we found ourselves shooting in the backyard. ☺  Everyone took a turn.  Jennifer, Ben and Isaac shot a 20 gauge shotgun.  I fired the 20 and the 12 gauge.  I was a junior or senior in high school the last time I shot a gun or a shot gun.  I was actually surprised at how quickly I remembered all the important facets.  Jennifer's first shot was quite funny because of the face she made when she pulled the trigger. ☺  Ben hit a skeet out of pure luck; the rest of us experienced an epic fail.  Tyson took pity on us and brought out an empty Sunny Delight gallon jug.  The 3 inexperienced shooters in the family took aim at the jug and hit it at least twice out of three tries.  It was very nice to see Tyson again.  We thanked him and his mom and sister for letting us come and visit (his dad and younger brother were participating in a 50 mile hike) and continued on our way to Cokeville.

We found ourselves in the middle of a huge downpour after passing through Pocatello.  The force and amount of rain pounding against the car reminded me of the rainstorm we experienced during our drive toward Carthage, Illinois two years ago.  The rain followed us as we exited the I-15 and continued on US-30 through Lava Hot Springs.  The town is a big tourist spot because of the hot springs.  I found it quite interesting to watch the people scattering like the ants in Bug's Life.  It appeared no one had expected to receive such a deluge and were running for cover anywhere and everywhere they could find it.  About 5 miles later, we finally got out from under the rain clouds.  The good thing about the rainstorm is it cleaned the bug guts off the front of the car (major carnage; it reminded me of the Far Side cartoon with the bugs watching a horror film about a windshield). ☺  An hour later, we pulled up next to my parent's house.  We had dinner with them and talked for a while before calling it a night.