July 31, 2023
The City Creamery, West Yellowstone, Montana
The name “City Creamery” hit me quite funny because I would not consider West Yellowstone a “City”, but we are in Montana, not New Jersey. Much of West Yellowstone seemed to be a place for tourists visiting Yellowstone National Park to stay, unfortunately we did not explore the area beyond the tourist district – we simply ran out of time. Our visit to the City Creamery was at night after leaving Yellowstone National Park,
Our friendly server showed us the machinery used to make the ice cream – older traditional machinery that I have seen in antique magazines – it would have been fun to see them in action. The City Creamery prepared a variety of creative flavors including Huckleberry-Honey-Lavender and Cowboy Coffee as well as the old standbys of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. I had Peppermint and it was quite tasty. I cannot say that antique machinery made ice cream any better than modern machinery, but it would have been more fun to watch.
There were tables next to the store to eat at, which we did tonight. Normally it would have been fun to walk around the town, but since it was quite late, mostly everything else was closed – We were glad the City Creamery kept hours like shops in most cities.
In the area: Yellowstone National Park – Around 630,000 years ago a massive volcano erupted in what is now the western United states, The hollows in the ground resulting from the emptying magma collapsed causing a caldera where hot magma is still relatively close to the surface. The hot magma still causes numerous hot springs, fumaroles, geysers, paint pots, and mud springs.
I first went there as a child over 50 years ago. My memories are of the Old Faithful geyser which as a child I found cool, but not as thrilling as my parents did (now I find it really thrilling) and of hot springs where people would throw in coins for good luck, My brothers and I got sticks and fished the coins out – we never had much money in those days. so this was like a gold mine.. Time has marched on as it always does, and Yellowstone is no longer a place where throwing anything into hot springs is okay and getting that close to hot springs is not okay either. – But the changes make it an even better place to visit. There are fabulous boardwalks which enhance the experience by allowing folks to safely see a wide variety of hot springs, geysers, fumaroles and many, many other things close up and safely. I absolutely loved it.
Yellowstone also has wide sections outside the caldera that include waterfalls, canyons, mountains and lots of wildlife including bison, elk, and bears.
In 1872 Yellowstone National Park was created – the first national park in the world.
Yellowstone National Park far exceeded my expectations – we explored it for two and a half days and never tired of it – there were so many great things that I will not even pretend to describe much more that a very small fraction.
Old Faithful Geyser had been going off at regular intervals for longer than the national park existed – it is not as regular as it used to be, but it is still close to a schedule, so we enjoyed watching it, Right next to Old Faithful is the Bee Hive Geyser which normally goes off once a day, we were able to get very close to it and feel the pressure that forced the water far into the air, Another of my favorite geysers was the Steamboat geyser, called Old Unpredictable, because its eruptions have varied between 48 hours and 50 years – it did not go up while we were there.,
Yellowstone National Park is a not-to-be-missed park.
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