TGRT Day 4: Yellowstone (Geysers and Hayden Valley)

After staying up late to see the stars, we got up early to see more geysers before leaving the geyser basis area for our next hotel, the Lake Yellowstone Hotel.   But first we went back to visit our favorite, Castle Geyser, and hike the paved trail back to Morning Glory Pool.   It was a drizzly morning and we wanted to get back to the inn in time for the brunch buffet (William's favorite part of any hotel stay!), so we were only out about 90 minutes.

 

These are bear tracks in the mud.  We had no idea how close we would see both bison and bear in just hours....As we loaded up the car after brunch, we saw a crowd on the walkway near (but not watching) Old Faithful.  I asked someone what was happening and they said a bison sighting.  So of course we had to look, too!  It was crazy to see two bison walking near the paved paths of the geyser field.  This was our first encounter with people getting TOO CLOSE to the wildlife.   After we watched from afar, we got in our car to leave and ended up having to drive right past one.  We pulled into a parking space for a closer view, but stayed safely inside the car!

After that exciting start to the day, we worked our way through the various natural wonders of the geyser trail - seeing more famous geysers, pools and mud pots.  Considering it took us something like 4 hours to get 30 miles, I suddenly understood why everyone suggested multiple days in Yellowstone!   Parking was horrible at many of the spots.  We were thankful for a small rental car instead of a big SUV or one of the rental RVs.   Especially when we needed to pull off the road to get out for an animal sighting, which was a frequent occurrence. 

The haze and drizzle cleared off for a nice day and we saw our first bear!  We were glad to have that out of the way!   We met people throughout the trip who said they had not seen one after multiple days.   Our grand total was 8 over the course of three days.   Our bison total was more like 4,000!  Though I have no idea how many of the same bison we saw multiple times as we drove through Hayden Valley to/from the Lake Yellowstone Hotel.     Pronghorn are the third animal below.

 

The Mudpots were particularly smelly!  And crazy enough bison were hanging out near some.  As I was trying to back away from one, I didn't notice another behind me and stepped in a pile of bison poop.   Luckily I didn't step into any bison!

 

 

 We finally made our way over to our new digs and were very pleased with the accommodations.  The shower was warm and had good pressure and William had this living room area to call his own.  I actually had forgotten that I booked this room layout and thought we were upgraded.   But I went back and looked at the description of what I booked and realized I had paid for it.  The only thing that totally escaped me about Yellowstone was that there would be no wifi.  We told William he had to keep a travel journal on his Chromebook.   But I didn't realize that Chromebooks didn't work without internet, so that never happened.  (Seriously....those things are stupid....what a marketing ploy since I have now bought two -   one through school and one for home - without realizing their worthlessness)

After cleaning up we enjoyed a drink in the lobby and then had dinner in the dining room.   It was a lovely meal and clearly the finest dining available at Yellowstone.  We ended up going there the second night, too, since dining choices were so scarce.   It never occurred to me that there weren't places to just drop in for meals!

 

After dinner we walked along the parking lot in front of the hotel which overlooks the lake.  But it was a steep cliff so we didn't get to go down to the water and there wasn't any beach.

 

TGRT Day 3: Yellowstone (Old Faithful)

On the third day, we drove from Wyoming to Montana on the John D. Rockefeller Highway that connects the two national parks.   It is only about 10 miles between the two but it took 2+ hours to get through Yellowstone to the geyser basin area where we were staying the night at the Old Faithful Inn.    When we pulled into the parking lot, I went straight to the geyser area to see when the next eruption was predicted.   It was less than 10 minutes away so we left our bags and joined the crowds to await our first viewing of Old Faithful geyser erupting.

 

 Afterward we joined the mass of humanity inside the lodge to check in, get snacks, gawk at the architecture, whatever.   It was SO. MANY. PEOPLE.  And this from a woman who loves Disney and has seen a crowd.....This sort of got us in the wrong frame of mind for the hotel.   And when we got to our super dated room with no A/C it cemented it.   But the lodge itself is historic and you certainly can't beat the "neighborhood!" So we "roughed it" for one night in the tiny beds, in the sweaty room, and with the shower that was scalding hot or freezing cold.

 I knew about Old Faithful but didn't realize it's a literal geyser field spreading out from the inn.   There is a boardwalk that goes past dozens (hundreds?) of geysers of various size, timing and predictability.  It was surreal to see the steam coming from the Earth.  And at various places the sulfur smell was strong.  For the most part it wasn't bad so long as the exhaust wasn't blowing toward your face.  There were also various hot pools - some with clear water so you could see down into it.  There were so many signs about not throwing items into the pools, as it would ruin them.  That was actually really sad....to think about how humans had probably already ruined these natural wonders.

We lucked into two really cool eruptions!   Lion (closeby) and Castle (farther away).  Lion actually roared before it erupted!   We were just in the right place at the right time for that one.  It was just amazing!

 

After we walked most of the boardwalk from Lion down to Castle, we were shocked to see that Castle was still erupting!   Turns out it goes for almost an hour!

 

It's only another 5 minutes walk from Castle back up back to the inn.  We finally got to enjoy some ice cream (Lisa and William) and Scotch (John) in peace on the upper deck since it was now evening and the hoard of Old Faithful watchers had cleared out.  Though I was hoping we'd see an eruption from there! 

 

We didn't see another eruption but did get back up for a nighttime viewing of it.  It was cold and hard to see - because it's SO DARK but I'm glad we did it.  We also attempted star gazing but it was a little cloudy, and we were tired, and we don't know our constellations very well.  But I still crossed it off the summer fun list as complete!