First stop: Mud Volcano. Sounds inviting, don't you think?
Mud Volcano itself is an active mud spring that was discovered in 1871, but the area also includes hot springs and other thermal features such as Black Dragon's Caldron, Sour Lake, and Dragon's Mouth Spring. Lovely.
The boiling hot water bubbles right out of the ground, and steam rises up into the air, but then starts to descend back down to the earth.
The active gases are mostly steam, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen sulfide. The hydrogen sulfide is what creates the foul odor in rotten eggs and flatulence.
So just let that sit in your imagination for a minute.
Annette, who has a highly developed olfactory system, turned a pale shade of blue and nearly fainted from holding her breath for the 20 minutes we were there.
Okay, not really. But she was pretty disgusted with the whole experience.
These built walkways were the only way to walk through these areas. Everywhere we looked there were signs that warned us NOT to step off the walkway, because the earth below was only a thin crust in parts and if you dared to walk on it you could fall through and be instantly swallowed up, disappearing into the muddy pits of hell before your husband turns around and says "where's mommy?".
Okay. So the signs didn't say that exactly. But that's what I thought when I read them.
Wade said he felt like he was taking a stroll through Mordor on his way to Mount Doom.
Do you see the deer in the upper right corner of the picture below?
Davey thought for sure it would lose its footing and do a slide tumble into the murky, bubbling, steamy pit below.
But it didn't.
It was as comfortable on the edge of death as it would be next to a peaceful stream.
Just looking for breakfast.
Like most points of interest in Yellowstone, there was a hiking trail we could have taken. But we had to keep moving, because there was so much more to see before the day was over.
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