Yellowstone National Park

Continued on to Yellowstone after Grand Teton.  Given the park is over 3,000 sq. miles and extends into three states, I only traveled through a small portion of it.  While I was surprised to find much of the park a little underwhelming (beautiful, untouched land sure, but nothing overly unique from what I saw back home), it was hard not to be impressed when I finally reached the Geyser Basin.

Snake River winding down towards Grand Teton in the distance

Yellowstone was the first national park in the world, and sits on the Yellowstone Caldera, the largest super-volcano in North America.  It is considered active and, based on previous cases, is actually past-due to erupt again.

Firehole Lake Drive

To give a sense of scale, Mount St. Helens left a crater of approximately 2 square miles when it last erupted.  Yellowstone Caldera is 1500 square miles.  When Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, its ash was detectable over 20,000 square miles away.  The last eruption of Yellowstone (considered a smaller eruption), ejected 8,000 times the ash and lava of St. Helens.

Old Faithful Geyser erupting

Great Fountain Geyser

Firehole Lake Drive

Day VI: Glen Canyon

Drove through parts of Arizona and Utah today, pushing my fear of heights to the limit by laying on a rock slab sticking-out over from the top of Horseshoe Bend to get a shot straight down 1,000 feet.  Check back later for more shots from today (assuming I am not sleeping in my car somewhere tonight or can't get on the internet).

No time this weekend to shoot and still lacking inspiration and the legs to carry me around the streets.

No time to shoot so here's a throw-away shot for the day (sorry)...

Before I get drilled with questions... shot B&W with blue filter at high contrast. Additional contrast, sharpening, and hue added post. No added texture--that is the surface reflection and the texture from below the surface of the water.

Study: Soap Bubbles

Went outside today for the first time in days...went about three feet to get this shot

Bay St. Lawrence, Nova Scotia

On the way up North today, I came across a gigantic relay race that appeared to have the entire province out in support.  Turns out it was the Cabot Trail Relay Race, a 48-hour team relay race across 185 miles of the northern coast.  Teams of 17 spend the off-shifts shuttling up the course to cheer on fellow runners.  While I wasn't able to take any real pictures of the indescribably unique form encouragement these supporters gave (let's just say it entailed overweight men in spandex body suits dancing, a gigantic mouse mascot, pirates, lobsters, and a LOT of cowbell), it created quite the scene.  Later in the day I came across Mark Cambell, an 'ultramarathoner' who attempted to run the full 185 miles on his own.  While I didn't realize it at the time I passed him, it turned out the press at the top of the hill was there because he had fallen ill and was about to give up.  He ran approx. 96 miles before being shuttled off to the hospital. 

Of course the only picture I manage to capture is of the most normal race supporters

Another day, another encounter with a "World's Largest...." site

 World's Largest Native American Holding A Torch