Yellow Stone

In school … of the subjects I tended to avoid , one of them was Geography.

I never was fond of it , just managed to get passing grades . I think I was in class 7 , when we read about the Yellowstone National park and it’s geographic importance .

This place of natural wonder where you see the earth raging through its numerous geysers , mud volcanoes , hot springs and mysterious sulphuric vapors.

The beautiful part is that among the earth here being angry /beautiful there is also a vast expanse of land ..green lush meadows abundant with wild life - bisons , bears , elks , deers and numerous birds.

The Yellowstone National Park is a geographic wonder where you get to see Geysers like the Old Faithful erupt about 65 mins apart ( yes it’s precisely timed , hence called Old Faithful ) 30 ft of hot water with sulphuric vapors.

If you like me did a couple of days trips within the park .. you would soon get adjusted to those sulphuric vapes, that mysteriously seem everywhere rising up from the earth, as the unruly bison crossing the road or entering the car park !

Careful though as the bison is not nearly as friendly as it might appear in the pictures !!!
What amazed me the most besides the faithfully erupting Old Faithful Geyser was the colors of the Grand Prismatic Spring, located in the Parks’s Midway Geyser Basin.

The Grand Prismatic as you can tell from the name is a feast for the eyes .. third largest hot water spring in the world .. the hot water that emerges through the cracks in the earth is the home of various curiously adapted heat loving bacteria ( thermophile ) that live in each zone.

The degree of water makes the bacterial inhabitants change their color so the lake too changes its color from season to season ….I saw it on a cloudy overcast day and was blown away by its colors … the shades of yellow with molten gold and light blue rising among the mysterious sulphuric vapors are what surreal dreams are made of …

Perhaps paying attention to geography wasn’t a bad idea after all , as I sadly discovered later through this visit. The weather was quite temperamental as one saw the change of seasons from light rain to hail drizzle , snow flurries to steady snowfall .. then again to see the sun melt away the snowy paths ..all in just couple of days.

Nature sure knows how to surprise …and the best part of this trip was .. I was with friends as we hiked , picnic etc … we came back home to our beautiful log cabin nestled among pine trees to lovely teas , warm meals .. lots of laughter, good wine and spirits with banter , music and Dum charades !!!

450 words

Prompt ▼

Write no more than 1000 words about/with/using (but not in lol) the color yellow.
There are 2 options: Fiction and Nonfiction. You can submit 1 entry for each. The color yellow must be a dominant theme, word, idea, etc. in your writing.

Prompt: Write something with the color yellow as a domanant theme, topic, or idea in honor of the July 21, 2022 promotions to Preferred Author.
Written for "The Whatever Contest." "The Whatever Contest -- Closed for Now" 
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