EMS World Expo

Was planning to visit my parents in August. Then Carrie mentioned that she was going to Vegas to the EMS World Expo. Hmmmm.... Vegas... Warm. Hot. Pools. Where there are drinks with little umbrellas in them. Okay, you don't have to ask me twice. Or, in this case, at all. I'm not a huge Vegas fan but the summer here wasn't very warm and I was needing some blood boiling days to get over the long winter we just had and the long winter that we're slated to have. I didn't need to go to the conference. It was a chance to get away someplace to be with friends but not have to spend all my time with them. Then, it turned out to be cheaper to sign me up for the conference than it was to sign up the other five people who wanted to go. Oy.
Any way you cut it, though, I had fun. Lost more money than I meant to but I also didn't eat as much food as I had thought so it evened out. Got to eat some great food. Learned some EMS. It was pretty good.
My favorite lecture was "When Rosie met Johnny" about women in EMS. The speaker was dynamic adn very knowledgeable.
Lloyd really enjoyed traveling with Carrie and I. Neither one of us finished out meals so he got quite a bit of eextras. For a beanpole, the man sure can pack it away.

 Me on the Monorail

 Got to watch how Vegas would handle a mass casualty incident

One more thing about my YA class

I need to write about my fifth day of class but I don't have my notes right here in bed with me so I won't be getting out from underneath my warm and fluffy down comforter to get them.

Anyway, it was a late summer this year and the spring flowers were still out in force. Here are some of the pictures I took.

Day 4

Our first stop of the day was Mud Pots. I haven't been there in quite awhile so this was kind of a fun trip.
Then we hiked Elephant Back. It was a wonderful hike and reminded me how much I liked that hike. I had just enough time to have a drink with some of the group and then head over to Old Faithful to meet Jane Wittlinger and her family for some dinner. It was a LONG wait but the Mediterranean dish at the Inn was wonderful.

Geology of Lake - Day 3

We started out early at 7:30 again. The first stop was the LeHardy Rapids. This is a major spawning route for the cutthroat trout.  This is the "hinge line" of the deformation of the caldera. The Sour Creek dome is across the river with an exposed potion of the Lava Creek cut at the bottom.
We then headed up to Hayden Valley, the "Serengeti of the Yellowstone." The diversity in the area is very unusual for being inside the caldera (rhyolite is nutrient poor so it doesn't usually support a lot of vegetation.)
Next stop: Artist Point.You can see the different types of sediments on top of the lava flows. At the very top of the clifss are kames. All of these are representative of a single flow event. The vertical joints in the lava flow are caused by cooling.
Coming out of Canyon out of Dunraven: the best way to tell when you leave the caldera is when the vegetation changes. We stopped at the first pullout on the way up to Mount Washburn. From there, you can look south to Mount Sheridan. There are lava flows evidenced by steep sides, bulbous fronts and flat, hummocky tops. Pitchstone Plateau is one of the largest examples of this in the park.
We then took the Road to Norris. We stopped at Nymph Lake. Across the road is Lava Creek. Looking toward the lake, there is a new thermal feature. It showed up in 2003. It looks like a small burnout that is moving in a North/South direction.

We then started up the Monument Geyser trail. It's a trail that climbs 1,000 feet in a mile. It's short but steep. The high side of the road is rhyolitic lava flow and according to Lisa, "We're on a big fissure here." The ph's in this area vary from about .2-4. At the top, it's an acid-sulfate system, but Beryl Springs at the bottom is a neutral chloride system and about 6.5 ph. The spires up here were created under water. Lisa is supposing that these particular spires may have even been formed underneath Yellowstone Lake (aka, it extended all the way up to Monument.) The spires on Monument are about 16-24 thousand years old. Th spires in the Lake have been uranium-dated to 11,000 years old.
After a fairly heavy rainfall on our way back down, we headed off to the Madison Junction. It was
The Yellowstone caldera isn't going to erupt again, there isn't enough magma left in the chamber. However, there could be another caldera-forming eruption somewhere else in the
park.

Why do I do these things to myself?

Knowing that slots were limited, I applied to be in the local EMT class. My thoughts, there's no way they're going to put me in. But they did. So now, Monday and Wednesday evenings until April are now going to be taken up learning about blood and guts and gore. Tuesdays and Thursdays? I'm still doing TurboKick. It's going to be a long six months...

Day 2- Met at the Lake Hotel at the ungodly hour of 7:30 and were immediately whisked away to Fishing Bridge where... we... saw... otters! Nine years in Yellowstone and I finally saw my first otter at the end of May and now here! Apparently I've been hanging out in the wrong neighborhoods. Lisa used the big 3D map of the Lake to show us where different things were located as well as various underwater craters and thermal features. At the stop at the General Store, I got cookies and cream Wilcoxson's. It was awesome
Next stop was Mary Bay. While we were hiking, I realized that I really hadn't been out much this year when I realized that I kept blowing my water back into my Camelback (to keep it from freezing).
We started walking the Storm Point trail. There is apparently alot going on here what with various collapsed craters (this happens when a cap collapses under its own weight, you can spot a tell-tale collapsed crater becasue there is no breccia (bretch-ya) and no rim), fractures in the lake shore.
While talking to Lisa, I discovered that she knows a lot of Gardiner folks including one known as "Babbette." It took awhile to piece it together, but finally figured out that Babbette actually works  in my building under another name. The things we find out about people!
We stopped at Sedge Bay where we got to see a thermal dome. Apparently, there are "all kinds" of thermal vents under here. We also got to see an example of a stock, which is possibly what is going to happen to Black dog in the future.
There were a couple of other stops including Lake Butte and Beach Springs and then we were back to Lake Hotel where I finished up the day with a well-deserved fancy-drink adn then jetted off to find the Veg trailer so I could go to sleep relatively early and be prepared for the next day which, at least on paper, is going to last two hours longer than today.
We saw a ton of animals
Golden Eagle
Otters (worth noting again)
Pupster tied under car(?)

Garter snake

Frog











Pelicans
Cormorants

Day 1- Got to Lake Hotel where the class was going to meet with just enough time to stop in at the bathroom. It was a long ride down with all of the bison being in Hayden and all of the tourists stopping to stare at the bison. We started off with a brief introduction of ourselves and why we took the class. "Hi, my name is Jessi. I'm the Research Librarian here and I've cataloged most if not all of the articles that Lisa [Morgan, the class instructor] has written  about the geology of the Lake and I'd like to understand some of them." But it's true. I'm a geology dunce and I'd really like to learn more about what's going on in the park so when people ask me questions, I can at least give a basic answer. Not necessarily patrons but family, friends, etc. Also, I'm tired of feeling left out of geological conversations. Okay, so I've not gotten into, nor listened to many geological conversations, but everybody here can speak about it better than I can and I'd like to be able to throw out at least a basic fact or two. Kind of like when Joey got the "V" volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Shouldn't life always be like TV? 
We got a brief overview of what we'd be learning. I had worked a ten hour day and then driven two hours to get to Lake so I was really embarrassed but I was having a LOT of trouble staying awake and was desperately relieved when Lisa ended the class for the night. Went over to Pat's (who graciously allowed me to stay at her place for the evening), had a glass of wine with she and fisheries Carrie (I can't remember her last name to my everlasting regret. One day I will learn how to remember people's names, this I vow!) and then went and tucked myself into bed.
Some random facts I learned:
The average altitude of Yellowstone lake is 7733 feet.
bathymetry- underwater topography
The oldest tuff in Yellowstone is Ridge Tuff
The Mammoth Travertine ranges from about 410-150 thousand years old