The Earth has Gas

Old Faithful, obviously excited by our arrival, blew just as we were walking from the parking lot to the viewing area, so we missed the big show, and would have to wait at least 90 minutes for the next eruption. We walked around the geyser basin, and saw all kinds of crazy stuff. There were mud pots, burbling geysers of all shapes and sizes, emerald blue pools filled with scalding water, and small, cavernous holes in the ground which I referred to as “Earth Vaginas”, just to gross out the passersby. I am klassi (speaking of—we get very few radio stations up here, but my favorite by far is KLSCE, Klassy radio, which is all soft rock and love songs, just like Delilah back home. Stay Klassy, Wyoming!) Many of the smaller geysers have names, such as the lion trio (which apparently give a low roaring sound when they’re about to blow), beehive geyser (looks like a beehive) Ear geyser (shaped like an ear) and Infant geyser (where you throw in your infants). There were signs everywhere telling you not to toss stuff into the geysers, and underneath those signs were signs saying not to bring your pets to the SUPER GEOTHERMIC CALDERA (YAY! SUPER VOLCANO!) and Lizzie and I conflated the two signs and for a minute thought it said not to throw your pets in the geysers, which was disturbing for a minute. We thought we were going to see Poodle Geyser (where you throw in your poodles). Infant geyser is real, by the way. I made up the infant tossing part (I hope) but that is the actual name of a geyser. Some of the geysers were nameless, and I wish I could supply the names, because then we’d have “Smells like a fart geyser” “Sorry I just ate Mexican geyser” and “Diaper Change Needed geyser”. The smell was pretty atrocious in some places, and we also learned that, should the smell of the boiling geyser not be a deterrent to sticking your face in it, you can also get meningitis and/or legionnaires disease from the bacteria-laden steam.

We went back to the Old Faithful viewing area about 20 minutes before it was about to blow, and we sat next to this cute brother/sister pair, who were probably in their early 20s. The brother asked to borrow a coat from his parents (when the sun went behind the clouds it was chilly) on the condition that the coat not obscure the awesomeness of his howling wolf t-shirt, and the sister pointed out this terrifying digger-wasp which was, well, digging through the soil off of the viewing platform, probably looking for some innocent bug so it could lay eggs in his head. Unfortunately, our amusement at our neighbors was short lived, because this god-awful couple from Idaho descended upon us, Grandchildren in tow, and Grandma managed to sustain the most inane, yappy conversation for the entirety of the time we were waiting for the geyser. And guess what? Old Faithful was not as faithful as it could’ve been. The grandkids were whining the whole time that they were bored, and wanted to go, and Grandma was yapping over them about how she wished she could predict the geyser’s explosion, because boy wouldn’t that be easier for all of them, but Old Faithful was probably tired, and not ready to erupt, but when it did, boy, wouldn’t you know it because there’d be steam and water, and it’d go really really high. No, really high, but boy, I think Old Faithful is tired and SHUT UP!! ONLY ONE GEYSER CAN ERUPT AT A TIME, AND OLD FAITHFUL WILL NOT ERUPT UNTIL YOU STOP YAMMERING!

Finally, thank god, Old Faithful did its thing, and it was super cool. I read in this Bill Bryson book that eventually Yellowstone, which is a super volcano, could blow up and take out most of the western hemisphere, but should that happen, I’m taking some solace in the fact that it will finally put an end to that woman’s incessant yammering once and for all. I just hope I go in the first explosion, because I am not much a fan of volcanic winter. Too cold, and not enough sun.