Smorgasbord Posts from Your Archives – #Potluck – A trip to Yellowstone Park and Alaska by Miriam Hurdle

Welcome to the new series of Posts from Your Archives, where bloggers put their trust in me. In this series, I dive into a blogger’s archives and select four posts to share here to my audience.

If you would like to know how it works here is the original post: https://smorgasbordinvitation.wordpress.com/2019/04/28/smorgasbord-posts-from-your-archives-newseries-pot-luck-and-do-you-trust-me/

Today we continue with the series of posts from the archives of poet Miriam Hurdle, who is a regular contributor to the blog. This time I am selecting the posts and the next one I would like to share with you is from Miriam’s travel category. This posts is part of the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #33 – Nature

A trip to Yellowstone Park and Alaska by Miriam Hurdle

In this post, I feature photos taken from two trips representing two ends of temperature in nature.

My brother John and his wife Peggy visited us from Hong Kong. We went on a bus tour to Yellowstone. Yellowstone National Park preserves the most extraordinary collection of hot springs, geysers, mud pots, fumaroles, and travertine terraces on Earth. More than 10,000 hydrothermal features are found here, of which more than 500 are geysers.

Types of Hydrothermal Features

There are five types of hydrothermal features readily visible in Yellowstone:

• Geysers: Hot springs with constrictions in their plumbing, which causes them to periodically erupt to release the pressure that builds up.
• Hot Springs: Pools of geothermally heated water.
• Mudpots: Hot springs that are acidic enough to dissolve the surrounding rock. Typically, also lack water in their systems.
• Travertine Terraces: Hot springs that rise up through limestone, dissolve the calcium carbonate, and deposit the calcite that makes the travertine terraces.
• Fumaroles: also known as steam vents. These hot features lack water in their system, and instead constantly release steam.

Resource: https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/hydrothermal-features.htm

Old Faithful Geyser named for its frequent and somewhat predictable eruptions which number more than a million since Yellowstone became the world’s first national park in 1872.

Abyss pool hot spring

Mudpots

Mudpots

Travertine Terraces

Fumaroles – Steam Vents

We had been to Anchorage, Alaska on two trips. The first time we went in late September, one week after the summer season and missed the train going to Denali National Park. It was the reason we took our second trip last year and secured a tour to Denali before the trip.

We did a lot of sightseeing during our first trip. We took the Glacier Cruise departing from Whittier and explored the western side of Prince William Sound. We went on a rafting trip down a river and had a helicopter ride up to Harriman Glacier. My husband has a helicopter license. The pilot jokingly said if Lynton had the license with him, he would let him fly the helicopter. We got out after the helicopter landed and had a gorgeous view of the glacier, the valley and Prince William Sound.

©Miriam Hurdle

About Miriam Hurdle

Miriam Hurdle is a multi-genre writer. She writes poetry, flash fiction, and short stories. Her poems are included in Letters to Gaia, Whispers and Echoes Issue 2, Whispers and Echoes Issue 3, and Outcast and More Words.

Music has rooted in her life. Being a soloist as a teenager led her to taking voice lessons and to have ongoing singing engagements. She continues to sing soprano in choral groups. Lyrics have a major influence in the natural flow of her melodic writing. She writes memoir in the form of poetry.

Along with her brother, she took photos when the films were black and white. Photography is still her enjoyable hobby. Drawing and painting were fun activities as a child. Her favorite was to draw a Japanese girl with big eyes, long hair, small lips and chin. She resumed drawing and watercolor painting several years ago. In her poetry collection, photos and paintings are included to illustrate the poems.

She earned a Doctorate of Education from the University of La Verne in California. After two years of rehabilitation counseling, fifteen years of public school teaching and ten years in school district administration, she retired and enjoys life with her husband in southern California.

About  Songs of Heartstrings which has a recent review

Human being has the willpower to travel through an exhausting journey, win a tough battle, and heal a deep wound. Strength from hope keeps us going until the light at the end of the tunnel is in sight and striving until the storm is over.

This poetic memoir comprises themes ranging from the suffering through an undesirable relationship, surviving an aggressive cancer, to the happiness in true love, the joy of parenthood, and gratefulness toward the Maker. Hurdle reveals the honest self-talk and reflects a heart filled with optimism, faith and trust. She illustrates the poems with her beautiful photos and paintings.

One of the recent reviews for the collection

JKS 5.0 out of 5 stars Straight from the Heart April 26, 2019

A fantastic collection of honest, heartfelt poetry that takes the readers on a journey through good times and bad. She writes about a health scare that could have easily ended her life. She weaves nature, family, love and faith through her writing. If you love REAL poetry – poetry that moves you, you will enjoy Miriam’s book! 

Read the reviews and buy the collection: https://www.amazon.com/Songs-Heartstrings-Poems-Gratitude-Beatitude-ebook/dp/B07K1S47W9

And on Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Songs-Heartstrings-Poems-Gratitude-Beatitude-ebook/dp/B07K1S47W9

Read reviews and follow Miriam on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17252131.Miriam_Hurdle

Connect to Miriam

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Miriam-Hurdle/e/B07K2MCSVW
Website and blog: https://theshowersofblessings.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/miriam.hurdle.1
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mhurdle112

My thanks to Miriam for allowing me access to her archives… it is a pleasure to read her posts.

Thank you very much for dropping in today and I know that Miriam would love your feedback. Thanks Sally.