I have a new favorite place in North America, and it stinks

Old Faithful gets the spotlight. The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone gets the river-mist rainbows. The bears and bison get oohs and aahs and bring gridlock just by wandering near the road. But my new favorite place in Yellowstone National Park is none of those. It’s Grand Prismatic Spring, the star of this video.

In fact, as of today, it’s my favorite place in North America. (It’s also the largest spring in North America.) There’s something surreal about the wind-shipped clouds of stinky steam, the alternating hot blasts and cold gusts, the variable visibility, the rich prismatic hues of the water, even the stately procession of global tourists on the boardwalk, whispering and hollering in a dozen languages.

Grand Prismatic Spring is about 7 miles north of Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park. Photo taken in 2015.

(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

The biggest drawback: Its parking lot fills up fast every morning. But it’s easy to find -- 6.8 miles north of Old Faithful and the Old Faithful Inn on Grand Loop Road.

“A Minute Away” is a video series in which nothing much happens -- except you see the world, and hear it, and get a respite from workaday life. We’ve covered Machu Picchu, Red Square, the Yucatan, the Alamo, an Alaskan float plane and the reading room of the New York Public Library, among other places. Since early 2013, we’ve been adding a new minute every week (and some of those “minutes” are closer to 120 seconds). So if you’d prefer an hour or two away, we’ve got more than enough here for you…

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Daily Detour brings you odd spots, strange trips and great moments in travel