Day Four: A Wild Drive Through Yellowstone 第四天：穿越黄石的狂野车程

Today was already our fourth day at Yellowstone — can you believe it? Time has been flying by so fast. First thing in the morning, my mom told us to get out of bed quickly, because the roads were about to get blocked. Everybody else was heading into Yellowstone too, just like us, so we wanted to beat the crowds. After a quick breakfast of noodles, we hit the road for what turned out to be a very long drive. Today we looped around the northern half of Yellowstone’s famous figure-eight loop.

We spotted some bison along the way, which was really fun, but the weather was rough. The moment we arrived, it was pouring rain. We still managed to check out a few springs and do a little hiking, and honestly it wasn’t tiring at all. By the time we’d seen everything, though, it was already late in the day, even though it didn’t feel like we’d done that much.

Just as we were about to head back, things got wild. We had to cross a really rocky path that climbed up, up, up so high that there was actual snow at the top! Then we came back down the other side. I figured we’d still see snow down below — but instead, it started hailing. The hailstones came down hard and fast, smacking the car so loudly that at first I thought it was just rain making little bubbles. But nope — it was hail. There were so many of them that they looked like little dark spots almost blocking out the sun. I got really worried about the windshield cracking, but after a few seconds it let up, and I finally started to relax.

Then my mom said it was getting too late, so we headed for home. On the way back, more storms rolled in, and it was another long drive. I had to map out the route everywhere myself, because my mom hadn’t downloaded enough offline maps to keep us going. Right as we were about to exit the park, the hail came back even bigger and thicker than before — it really did look like dark specks filling the sky. The pellets hit so hard I thought the screen might break, but luckily it held.

The craziest part came at the very end. As we drove through the last stretch, the sky suddenly turned bright, and sunlight came pouring down through the clear air — yet it was still drizzling at the same time! It wasn’t dark and gloomy like normal rain at all. It felt like driving straight through a sunshower, with sun and rain happening together. It was so crazy and beautiful that I’d totally do it all over again.