Mammoth Hot Springs

A hill of travertine

We cross the northern Idaho panhandle then Montana and Wyoming to enter Yellowstone Park at the North entrance where we stay at the Mammoth Springs Lodge, right out of the 1950s, God bless.

We take an early morning ranger tour and learn that the hot springs created over 400,000 to 600,000 years as hot water from the spring cooled and deposited calcium carbonate (over two tons flow into Mammoth each day in a solution). We are on a volcano, afterall.

The kids for their part are hanging in there, shifting from back-seat bickering to bored exuberance (both get a holler from the front seat).  Much of their squabbling is over who has been more generous and so on and so forth so I get them to write it out: Madeleine has shared her french fries, a tee-shirt, a chocolate bar and the better side of the bed at the Davenport Hotel in Spokane. Eitan has given Madeleine some popcorn, a few chips and her choice of the car seat (we are in an American seven-seater). Overall, it is about even.