The Fires of 1988

Twenty years ago Yellowstone National Park burst into flames; over a million of the park's beautiful acres were burned. The initial blaze was started by a single lightning strike that hit near Old Faithful Geyser, but park officials weren't worried at first; the fire was allowed to burn because of the natural burn policy which states that fires are to run their natural course as long as the fire was not man made, and as long as human lives, property, endangered species, or natural features were in danger. The decision to let the fires continue to burn became a huge controversy as they continued to consume thousands of acres of the world's first national park; park officials did not realize that the summer of '88 was one of the driest and windiest summers Yellowstone had ever experienced, so the fires were moving rapidly. They grew larger every day and were allowed to burn for an entire month before the decision to combat the blaze was made. By this time there were hundreds of fires burning in different places throughout the park. A firefighting effort was finally put into place and it became the largest firefighting effort in history. 9,500 firefighters from all over the nation came to Yellowstone to try to tame the blazes. 800 miles of fire line, 117 aircraft, 100 fire engines, and 1,000,000 gallons of fire retardant were also used in the effort to fight the fires but none of it stopped the fires - they were too large and moving too fast to even make a dent in their path. The fires burned the entire summer months; the snowfall in winter is what eventually put out the historic fires. The damage to the park was devastating. Acres of vegetation was killed, along with hundreds of magnificent animals that inhabit Yellowstone, such as bison, elk, moose, and wolves. The damage is still very visible today. It will take years for Yellowstone to recover from the 1988 fires... some areas were burned so bad that there will never be new growth. But there is new growth in Yellowstone, and much of the beauty that was lost twenty years ago is coming back. Although more anger was caused by the fires, scientists say that the fires were necessary for the environment and its natural growth. People today still disagree that the fires were a positive thing for the park because it will never look the way it did before the blazes. Regardless of whether they were a positive thing or a negative thing, the fires damaged a massive area of the beautiful park.

Grand Prismatic Spring

Mother Nature

As all of you know, Mother Nature is a bad ass. She has control of our safety while we're out and about... and sometimes she gets angry at the things we humans do. For example, there's this place called Yellowstone National Park and it has a lot of very large animals; bison and bears being two of them. Millions of people travel to see this park every year. It's famous for it's thermal features, but one of the biggest attractions is the wildlife. Yellowstone is like America's own little Africa (minus the AIDS)... there's all kinds of cool animals in place that you can't really see anywhere else. Well back to Mother Nature and our safety. This wonderful lady watches over us to keep us out of harm's way.... unless of course we mess with her plans. We see this happen all the time, or at least hear about it; the people who don't keep all hands and feet inside the ride at all times, people who think the volcano they're photographing is not full of burning lava so they get as close to the rim as they can, the people that stand in the middle of the road to film the tornado coming straight for them, and of course the people who can't read the signs warning them not to approach the wildlife. But those people are great right? We can make fun of how stupid they are while we're driving and texting someone else to ask them if they heard about the dumb guy. Obviously these things are not safe, so why do people do it? You thought I was going to have an answer to that didn't you? Well I don't... I don't know why they do it either. It can't be because it's fun. I don't see the fun in near death (or all death) experiences. I witnessed an encounter between Mother Nature and a tourist at Yellowstone once. It was hilarious! So there was this lady that wanted a picture of a bison that was in the parking lot. She was standing way too close to him... but a picture is worth a thousand words right? And sometimes thousands of dollars in hospital bills. She kept creeping closer like the bison couldn't see her or something! The animal started walking towards her and I swear she pissed a little bit. She screamed and bolted to her car. The bison followed and just stared at her through her window. Eventually he kept walking and left her alone. The lady I saw was lucky she didn't get attacked for being dumb. It's not a good idea to mess with Mother Nature... I'm tellin' ya. Watch the video if you don't believe me. It shows another man who got too close to a bison and wasn't so lucky. That day Mother Nature said fuck you human.

Funny shit

Here's what happens when you're dumb

Is that my cue?

Hi there! It's me... Old Faithful. I'm a geyser here at Yellowstone National Park. I'm sure you've heard of me. Well here's the scoop... I'm kind of a big deal around these parts. You could say that I'm a maverick of a geyser. I'm old but I still do fabulous work. I'm actually the most famous geyser in the world. How cool is that?! Out of all the beautiful attractions in this massive park, I get to be the most visited. I can't tell you how honored I am that I get the chance to meet more kinds of people than anyone or anything else in the world. I've even met Amish people! I'm not quite sure how they got here though. But anyway... back to me. My name again is Old Faithful, in case you've forgotten already. I was given this name because, well.... I'm faithful! I erupt about every ninety minutes and I give put on quite a show. I'm sure you've all seen my work. It's pretty good right? Yeah... I know, I think so too. Many people don't know this but there's a lot of mental preparation involved in getting ready for my shows. Seriously! You try expelling 3,700 to 8,400 gallons of scalding hot water from YOUR mouth for 2 to 5 minutes straight and tell me if it's easy. That's what I thought... you couldn't do it could you? That's okay hun, practice makes perfect. I'm sure you will get it eventually. Well it's been lovely chatting with you all but I've got to run. It's nearly time for another show. Ta ta for now!

Test Run

So.... yeah. Yay for blogging