Yellowstone Is Awesome

So I just finished FreeFire by C.J. Box, it's a great mystery novel, but it really stands apart in its characterization of Yellowstone National Park. I love Yellowstone, it's my favorite place to visit, and not just because of its beauty or that I enjoy the smell of sulfur. There's one specific reason why I adore Yellowstone:

Yellowstone kills idiots.

It's true. The entire reserve refuses to stand stupid people, and has no compunction about eliminating them from the gene pool. Bears, buffalo, wolves, they all kill people who are stupid enough to try and feed them, but in Yellowstone the land itself takes action.

There are signs in the park that tell you to stay on the path or you will die. This is no joke, and the rangers at the park are not the nice people who urge you to stay on the path, they tell you to stay on that path or you will die, because you will. You see, most of Yellowstone (at least the most widely visited section) is actually a huge lake of boiling water covered in a thin dirt crust. Even experienced rangers fall through this crust regularly, and if you fall into the water they cannot save you in time. Of course, not all of the water is this hot, there are even springs that act as perfect natural hot tubs, but it is extremely difficult to tell the temperature of the water without instruments (most people assume you can tell by the color of the water, which is true, except there are a variety of bacteria found only in Yellowstone that can alter the color).

Yellowstone is a park that will kill you if you do not respect it, and every year it kills at least a dozen more idiots.

God I love Yellowstone.

P.S. There are some people killed by Yellowstone who aren't idiots and I don't mean to imply that they are. Yellowstone is a force of nature, and I love it for that, but I love it especially because it kills idiots with much more regularity. Also saw a human skeleton in Morning Glory Pool (pictured above) on one of my first visits to the park. My family didn't believe me until we got the story out of a park ranger the next year.