Yellowstone National Park, Part 2

To add to my previous post on my Yellowstone visit, here are some additional shots: There really were just a lot of buffalo. Everywhere: Microbes that thrive on the hot rocks add a fiery orange to the landscape: There were also quite a few natural hot springs, some of which had vents in the rocks releasing boiling water:

Yellowstone National Park

I was completely blown away by Yellowstone. I expected lots a trees, some lakes, some animals, and a big geyser. But it turned out to quite possibly be the most impressive natural landscape I’ve seen. Apparently much of the park was created by a supervolcano eruption that occurred 640,000 years ago. The explosion essentially ripped a hole in the Earth, exposing active geological phenomena that would normally be hundreds, if not thousands of meters underground. But that’s about the extent of my understanding of the whole thing. So take a look: Gas containing lots of sulfur spews out of rocks next to a frozen lake: A grizzly bear spotting: This is where the bear came from: Buffalo milk: A gigantic pool of gray clay:

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South Dakota

I had a great time exploring South Dakota today. It’s a very impressive state, with a lot more going on than I expected. I checked out the Badlands, Mount Washington, Custer State Park, the Black Hills National Forest, and Deadwood. I haven’t yet gone through my SLR shots, but in the meantime, here are a few photos from my phone:  

On The Road

I’m in Michigan at the moment, on the first leg of my road trip out to the Bay area for the summer. It turns out you can get a car wash in Detroit for $2. Here are some highlights from my stop by Niagara Falls earlier today: Blogging may be less frequent than usual over the next week and a half, depending on how often I can find (or want to find) a decent internet connection.

Photos of the Week

National Geographic: Inishowen, Ireland National Geographic: Namaqua Chameleon, Namibia EarthShots: Cheetah And I found this timelapse video of the European Southern Observatory’s “Very Large Telescope” VLT to be pretty amazing. Just watch the sky spin in circles.

Everyone Loves Time Lapses

Today I discovered the work of Terje Sørgjerd, one of the most impressive visual artists I’ve ever seen. If you have a few minutes, these videos are mind blowing: The Mountain: The Aurora: The descriptions of each video on Terje’s Vimeo site are worth reading.