Everyone says that it’s best to get to Yellowstone early as it gets really crowded later in the day. We have a light breakfast and are on the road by 8:30. Our campsite is on the North edge of Tetons National Park which is the exit that we need to head to Yellowstone. We go along the John D Rockefeller Jr Memorial Highway which connects the two parks. Scenery is beautiful but then there are large swaths of dead pines. Some of them look charred and some just look dead like an insect invasion. There are at least new trees coming in.
Since Old Faithful is the must see of the park, we go there first. The park is hugs so even once you’re in the park, it is still a good hour drive to get to the center with Old Faithful. We got there without any traffic problems and found a place to park that was reasonable. Old Faithful is slated to erupt in about 30 minutes. That gives us time to see most of the education center. We go out in the blaring sun with all the other tourists and wait. At least they have benches. A few false starts and then there she blows. It is quite windy so it isn’t the single shot up but more a huge mass of steam and mist. This was Nick’s first time to see it. That can now be checked off the bucket list.
There are lots of short trails around Old Faithful of other geysers. Lots of bubbling and steam! I remember it smelling really bad but the sulphuric smell was pretty minimal. Lots of warning signs to stay on the boardwalks. Everyone was very compliant. Many of the geyser pools have beautiful turquoise water. They remind me of some of the denotes in Yucatán, especially with the soft white material around them. Of course, how the two are formed are very different and swimming in a denote is cool, refreshing and live giving while the swimming in a geyser would be the last hot spa of your life. The entire area is pocked with little geysers and bubbling hot pots. Each one is just unique enough that we stop to admire some aspect of it.
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We take enough time walking around the geyser basin that it is now almost time for the next Old Faithful eruption. This one has a much bigger audience. I don’t know if it is the angle or just a bigger eruption but we both agree that this performance was better than the previous one.
Can’t get the video to load. Ugh!
We eat our packed lunch sitting in the rocking chairs outside the education center. Good people watching! So many languages. T-shirts from all over. Lots of families, people in really good shape, really overweight people,
This park is huge! The distance between different points of interest might be 20 or 40 miles. The main roads in the park form an “8”. Today we’re doing the bottom part of the “8”. We came in at the very bottom. Going around to the left, Old Faithful is about a quarter of the way around the bottom circle. We stop at several geyser basins Each of them includes a walk along the boardwalk of 1/4 mile to a couple of miles. We generally take everyone. About the time that we’re getting jaded with the geysers, we get to Canyon Village. (All the intersections with gift shops, restraunts, restrooms, etc are called villages. Old Faithful Village, Lake Village, Grant Village….) This path isn’t a boardwalk but a real dirt path lined with stones. We get to the look out point on the Northern Rim. OMG and Wow! I didn’t know Yellowstone had a big canyon. My opinion of Yellowstone just shot up a bunch of points.
We stopped at several viewing points and I found myself taking a lot of pictures of the trees holding on for dear life. What determination. Some trees can peacefully grow in a yard with few challenges and then there are others that endure fires, wind, intense drought, poor to almost no soil. I guess it is like that for people too. I’m grateful to have a life with roots in fertile soil and challenges that I can handle.
Back to our camp home where we cook dinner and have a nice fire.
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