Day 22

Day 22: Ol’ Faithful

We drove straight up to Yellowstone National Park, America’s first National Park, once we packed up this morning. It wasn’t too long of a drive because the Grand Tetons are neighbors to Yellowstone. We got into Yellowstone and decided to go straight to see the Park since we already had reservations and that were calling for thunderstorms. We started with the most famous part of the Park, the geysers.

            We had lunch in the parking lot, taunted by a hungry crow and then ran over to make it just in time to see Old Faithful erupt. It was an amazing sight; the geysers water went up over 100 feet, which surprised us because from where we stood it did not look that tall. After we watched old faithful, we went out to walk around the 150 other geysers and hot spring pools in the area. Of course we didn’t make it to all of the different hot water areas but we made it to a lot and we were able to see a few of them go off. We barely missed the Great Geyser, which is the tallest predictable geyser in the world, but we are going to try and go back to it later. The hot springs and geyser were so beautiful and my favorite part was the colors created around the hot spring pools because of bacteria. Some of these pools looked like rainbows with the bright blue/clear water and the yellow’s, reds and greens around them. We went out to one geyser that was not on path taken very often and with all the talk of buffalo and bears we were a little worried, so we sang as loud as we could to scare any animals away, for some reason the only song I could think of was “O when the saints go marching in”. Unfortunately all that hard work in animals attacks prevention and we still missed seeing the geyser erupt.

            After we left that trail we got in the car and hit each little look out and hot springs stop there was to stop at. We were lucky the bad weather seemed to be holding off on us.

            After driving around and walking around all of the many small trails to see the hot water wonders we made it to our campsite in the Madison junction of the park. One of the most amazing things about Yellowstone is how big it is, it’s huge! So we made it in time to put up our tent just as the rain was starting. We made dinner and then headed back out down back towards the geysers to watch wild life and get a few minutes of cell phone reception. On our journey we saw tons and tons of buffalo. Of course the crossing of the herd caused a traffic jam that allowed us to take pictures but it was a little crazy how people get around wildlife, I cant even imagine what the buffalo must think of us. People will just pull their cars over anywhere, jump out and get close to the animals all to take a picture, it was a mad house. But the buffalo or bison we can’t really tell the two apart were so graceful and beautiful.

            Just about this time the clouds cleared enough for us to see Yellowstone in evening light. The steam stacks rising from the hot water areas just glowed in the sun and it was just incredible. Evening time with the sunset, the steam and the animals had probably been one of my favorite things we have seen.

            When it started to get dark we headed back to camp and settled down for the night. I finished my second book on this trip and David had yet to finish his one book that was already half way started before the trip. I think this may be because he stops to summarize every paragraph that he has just read. I know as much about his book as he does, but I love that he wants to share it with me.  We hope the weather tomorrow will be the same as today and that the storms will hold off so we can enjoy this beautiful landscape.