We were up about an hour later this morning. The days here
seem much longer than at home. We got up and had some breakfast and packed up
and drove up to the registration building and checked out. We stopped at the
gift shop and Clay got a t-shirt. We stopped and got gas and Clay sent me
inside for chocolate. I also bought a bag of huckleberry taffy and a gift for
him. Today we planned to drive the lower loop of roads in the figure eight. It
would be more about geysers today than waterfalls. But, we still got waterfalls
and animals.
Yellowstone Lake was less frozen today than it was
yesterday. Our first stop was at West Thumb Geyser Basin. We walked all of the
board-walked path and it was interesting. We were nearly the only people there
so early. As we started out walking, we startled out from under the board walk
a large gray and white rabbit. He had huge back feet and long ears. He hopped
off and we would see him between the trees as we walked and he grazed. At some
point he was out in the open and we were watching him when he exploded straight
up about 3 feet in the air with his hind legs stretched out behind him. It was
startling and if he had burst out from under the boardwalk like that we would
probably have fallen over. I laughed out loud and it startled him and he lit
out hopping over a small hill. Later we saw a small herd of elk. The steaming, boiling, bubbling cauldrons were strange, interesting, colorful and smelly. We were there about an hour.
As we were
driving on to our next stop, we saw an elk with velvet antlers grazing beside the road. Then, we encountered a pair of bison walking down the
road. It was a dilemma how to get around them since we’re instructed not to
stop when we see animals here in Yellowstone. Yet, how to keep going without
getting within 25 feet of them, which is another rule. A couple of other cars
went past them and as we got ready to go, the bison moved over into our lane.
Now we had to pass them on the left. We did, but it was a little scary. They are
the size of a car and I had my window open because Clay wanted me to record it.
(I don’t know how, I guess, because again I got nothing. Well, next to nothing. I got about 5 seconds which was almost one entire bison! Though I did get
some still photos this time.) I was only about 4 feet from them and they were
dripping wet. So, did they cross the river?
We stopped at Mud Volcano and saw some completely different
geysers, and mud pools. We walked around the entire boardwalk again. Then we
walked over to Sulphur Cauldron which was different yet again. In the Hayden
Valley, we saw some more bison activity and this time Clay had the camera and
did record a short video some of it. Look for it in today's photos. There were 3 bison very near the road. One was on a
small green island in the Yellowstone River. One drank from a scummy looking
pool of water and then walked about 3 steps and peed and it ran right into the
drinking pool. Gross! The bison on the island crossed the Yellowstone River and
climbed the river bank.
Then we crossed the Yellowstone River and drove along the
south rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. We went to Artist Point to
see the Lower Falls at 308 feet tall. We went to Upper Falls View at Uncle
Tom’s Point to see the Upper Falls at 109 feet tall. We drove across the top of
the loop uneventfully.
At Norris we drove to the Norris Geyser Basin and walked
the Porcelain Basin Trail because it was shorter. This is where we saw our
first spouting geyser, Constant Geyser in the center of the field blew 2 times
for a few seconds each time and maybe 12 feet high during the 45 minutes we
were there. We were thrilled.
It was about noon to 1:15pm by now and Clay was getting
testy. I had told him to expect lunch by this time and we were 15 minutes
behind schedule. I had planned to picnic below Gibbon Falls, so we blew by the
rest of the geysers here in search of the falls. We didn’t find them quick
enough and just pulled in at some other picnic grounds that had a pit toilet
and no shade or views. It was quiet and private though. Mostly Clay stressed
that it had a urinal so I suppose that and not low blood sugar was the problem.
After we ate we drove about 3 minutes and found the falls which we stopped to
see. Then we found the picnic grounds and Clay conceded they were more scenic
alongside the Gibbon River but they did not have toilets. It didn’t matter now
anyway.
Just past Madison, we took the little one-way side road to
see Firehole Falls. We saw a bison right beside the entrance to Fountain Flat
Drive so we turned in and found a lot of bison, a trumpeter swan and 2 sandhill
cranes. The swan could hold his breath for a long time, so I had a hard time
getting a photo. The cranes were visible back out off the main road and too
distant, so no picture again.
Our last stop of the day was a good one. We took the one-way
side road, Firehole Lake Drive. There were about 8 to 10 named geysers back
there that almost all had parking pullouts and boardwalks. The star of the show
was Great Fountain Geyser. See video in today's photos. There were a lot of people parked sitting and
waiting just like at Constant Geyser, so we knew we wanted to see it. We had to
park pretty far away on the side of the road and walk back. Shortly after we
got our places, it blew and blew and blew. It moved a massive amount of water
with great force. There were spouts so high up that I almost toppled over
leaning back to see them. I would think they were probably as high as 75 to 100
feet. It was incredible. A woman walked up beside me and said it was better
than Old Faithful. There was a White Dome Geyser behind it that from time to
time we could see spouting behind Great Fountain but in a single stream, unlike
the great wide spew from Great Fountain.
After that we came on into the Old Faithful area to check
into Snow Lodge for the next 2 nights. It is the newest property in this area.
The others are overlooking Old Faithful and are much older. We have a tiny
window on the 3rd floor in room 3043 and have a view of the
mountains in the opposite direction. The lodges here are all representative of
National Park Lodges unlike the convention center architecture over at Grant
Village. Snow Lodge is quite attractive and next door to the Yellowstone
General Store. The room is a bit on the small side but attractive and
interesting. It has a refrigerator and a Keuring Coffee Maker. There is a
sink/vanity outside the tub/shower and toilet and you enter by walking between
them. I should note that unlike all the other National Parks we have just come
through, that Yellowstone does not offer free wifi anywhere, but charges for
it. All the previous National Parks had free wifi in their lobbies/information
centers, etc. Not here. We paid about $260 to $265 per night here with the first night being prepaid when we reserved online. The other thing I forgot to mention is that on either check in or checkout at each National Park Lodge we have been asked if they can leave a donation charge on our bill. It has only been a few dollars each time and so we have left it to benefit the parks since we are basically getting free entry, but you know...
After we unloaded the car, we hustled over to see Old Faithful. See video in today's photos. We have renamed it Old Tardy. We saw it blow twice and it was not as
impressive as Great Fountain. A little bit of a letdown. There were at least 10x
as many people waiting around to watch it, too. It blew 15 minutes after the
projected time. The next one we watched after dinner was about a half hour
late. There was a phone number posted at the Visitor’s Center that you could
call to get the estimated geyser times, but we didn’t write it down because we
assumed it would be somewhere in our room or on the phone. It isn’t and they don’t
have it posted anywhere we could find either. We did hear a ranger inside the
Visitor’s Center loudly announcing to anyone who would listen that we should go
over and watch Beehive Geyser (see video in today's photos) instead of or in addition to Old Faithful. He
said it only erupts 3 times a day and sounds like a jet engine and is perhaps
more impressive than Old Faithful. We walked over. He was right.
Oh, I forgot about dinner. We ate at the restaurant at our
Snow Lodge because no reservations were required. I had a glass of Fess Parker
Riesling and pork schnitzel. Clay had a Teton red ale and bison short ribs. It
was all good. After the geysers, we shopped at Old Faithful Inn and the General
Store. We got stuff for lunch and breakfast for the next 2 days I think. We
picked up a pint of huckleberry ice cream and shared it in the room for our
dessert. It was from a Montana company called Wilcoxson’s and the ingredients
list said it was made with blueberries with no mention of huckleberries. But
there were whole berries frozen in there and you could see they were
huckleberries and not blueberries. It was delicious anyway, but after I read
that I didn’t want anymore.
We have no idea how we will fill another entire day here. I
am so exhausted. My feet hurt, and my whole body aches. You can stick a fork in
me because I am seriously done. The good news is we only have less than a week
to go. Clay told me at dinner, he hoped our remaining scheduled trips are
easier than this one. Me too.
Photos
