gloop, gloop, gurgle, gurgle

When Pook was a baby we made up songs for him all the time. I made them up because I hadn't been a mom very long and didn't remember the words to kid songs I'd once known. (I never remember lyrics.) CD made them up because, well, because he liked to make them up. Sometimes, as Pook got older, he made them up on request. Among the repertoire were the Diaper Song, the Crawling Song, the Swimming Pool Song, and the Humidifier Song. Don't ask me to sing any of them, sorry. But for some reason we've just spent dinner singing (too many) of them. At this moment the kids are playing with Dominoes on the floor of our cabin while singing the Diaper Song.

Me, I have the Humidifier Song in my head. "Gloop, gloop, gurgle, gurgle goes the humidifier. Gloop, gloop, gurgle, gurgle, there it goes." (No, not Grammy material.) But unlike the kids and the Diaper Song (thank goodness not applicable these days) I have a good reason for my tune.

We've seen lots of hydrothermal features at Yellowstone. I think I was under the impression that the Old Faithful area of geysers was it. The reality is that they are scattered all over this huge park. The high sprays of water may get the most attention, and the turquoise pools may be breathtaking, but the mud pots are my favorite. They just make me laugh. We saw one at the Artists Paint Pots area which had caused them to rope off part of the boardwalk. Boiling clods of mud were spraying out, ten feet up and away. The noise could be heard from a dozen yards away. "Gloop, gloop..."

This is another, the Fountain Paint Pot:

Beehive Geyser, which went off at the same time as Old Faithful, but higher

White Cone Geyser, which we watched erupt while eating our salami sandwich lunch

The Great Prismatic Pool, with rainbows of water, stone and steam

Celestine Pool, a boiling turquoise hole