Yellowstone National Park

I get a great night’s sleep in the car. In the morning I meet David and Albert, another guest from Germany. Well, we meet… well… after an hour, a shower and two excellent coffees, I set off again with Albert, a theology student from near Berlin. We get some provisions and drive the same route back to Yellowstone. Aha, so that’s what it would have looked like…

Albert wants to stay longer in the park and organises a campsite. Around 10 we head into the heart of the park. First the Mammoth Sulphur Spring in the far north. White rocks like in Turkey… bubbling everywhere, and the water bubbles over orange and green algae.
In between, dead trees stand like ghosts. Fortunately, the streams of tourists are limited.

We drive on, up a canyon, across a plateau and then past wild rivers to the first geysers. Huge car parks scare me. And the crowds of people at the entrance. But after just a few hundred metres it’s clear: Americans don’t like walking. And apparently never further than 200 metres. The sun is blazing at almost 2000 metres.

We hike almost alone over the wooden walkways between the geysers. Bright blue water, white rocks, green, yellow and orange algae. In between, mighty puffs of earth. And the omnipresent smell of rotten eggs. I turn Japanese and can’t get my camera away from my eyes. Old Steamboat in Norris Field is the largest geyser in the world. Spits three times higher than Old Faithful. We wait briefly. And then decide that the frequency (something between 3 months and 50 years) is a bit too undefined.

Albert tells me that a large part of Yellowstone was on fire in 1989. There are still dead, charred trees on many of the mountainsides. Around three we have a picnic by a river. Then we continue south past waterfalls to Old Faithful. Unfortunately, we just missed the last show. We wait for almost an hour, only to ask ourselves after the eruption: That’s it now? As always when travelling: the big things are very small. And the small things are huge.

We do the big loop past Yellowstone Lake. Albert finally gets his buffalo and elk in front of the lens. But time is running out again. I don’t want to be late again. A traffic jam costs me a lot of nerves. I drop Albert off at the campsite at around seven o’clock, wish him all the best on his way to the Indians and Canada and whip the limousine back to Bozeman. I’ve seen almost two thirds of all the geysers in the world today.

David and his girlfriend are waiting for me for dinner. Once again I can’t cook for or invite a dear host. My karma gets even more out of whack. It is skilfully righted with spaghetti and Italian sausages. I take care of the long overdue route planning and give David a few tips on search engine optimisation for his House Rules homepage. I’ve never thought about why I like it when toilet paper comes down the front of the roll. David does. He wrote a book about it. I think it’s wonderfully weird.