Yellowstone National Park is Mother Nature’s playground where she displays her beauty, power, and magnificence. We saw unbelievable sites yesterday: geysers gushing water and steam, deep springs in various colors of blue, green and red, hot boiling pools of water and bubbling mud, hot steam shooting from pits and caves. Seeing nature’s reality with your own eyes is a moving, almost frightening, experience.

In addition to the thermal features, there are other wonders to observe, deep canyons, powerful waterfalls, a pristine blue lake, high mountains, rushing streams with rapids where trout leap upstream like salmon. If that is not enough, add wild bison, deer, and other animals, all untamed and in their own habitat.

I cannot help feeling a sense of awe as well as a sense of gratitude that this has been preserved for us to see. Native Americans believed the area was sacred. I tend to agree. We must treat it with reverence and respect. We must tread lightly, look, and touch with care. We have inherited the magnificence of  nature where volcanos and wilderness meet and greet civilization. We are the keepers of a gift beyond description.