Our second day in Yellowstone and it's just as fascinating as the first. We did the southern loop yesterday, so we're doing the northern loop today. We make a morning stop at the Artists Paint Pots, a thermal feature with wild colors and diversity.
We seen a lot already, and are still excited by every stop. We pull into Norris Geyser Basin and we are even more amazed. It's otherworldly.
The food in the park is marginal at best, so on a recommendation from a fellow bar patron last night we head out the north entrance into the town of Gardiner. Mandy has been craving pizza, and we were told that K-Bar was the place. The tiny center of town is right out of gold rush / railroad boom / every 1950s western. Don, The bartender took our pizza order and brought me a local Scotch Ale, the 4th of its kind on this trip. Don explains that winters are long and they get good at stuff. We find out that Don is from New Jersey and the pizza maker is from Pennsylvania, and when they find out we're from the Philly area, they are very anxious to find out what we think of the pie. It's top notch. The sauce, cheese and sausage is delicious. The crust is different, thin but dense, and gives the pie it's own out west personality (Don thinks it's the water.) All on all it would hold its own with the best joints in NYC or Philly.
Just two and a half miles back into the park, we go to the Boiling River, little known feature visited by only a hundred or two hundred people a day. It's a 100 yard section where the Boiling River Hot Springs flow into the icy Gardner river. The spring will literally burn you, and the river will turn you toes blue in minutes. But here where it mixes, you can go into the water for a very surreal experience. Moving an inch in either direction changes the temperature radically, and standing still one side of you can be too hot while the other side is freezing. We find our happy place and take a nice long soak, seeing how close we can move our hands to the steaming waterfall before pulling them back. It's the only place in the park we found to touch the features, and it gave us a deeper understanding of the vents, geysers and pools we had been seeing. A definite park highlight.
On our way out of the park, we pass the fires again. They're bigger, spreading, more smoky. We stop on the east side of the park to watch the fire helicopters do their work.
Dinner at the Gallatin Riverhouse Grill, a locals bar with giant Jenga and a swings bar outside (not swingers, a square bar with swings for seats) and ridiculous BBQ inside. The sampler platter for 2 would feed 4. The sauce is just how I like it tangy and not at all sweet, so a few Montana Mules are the right compliment.
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