Yellowstone (Part Two)

A hot spring.

This morning, it was Daniel who got up early with me to go exploring. We walked up a steep half-mile trail to Observation Point. We witnessed Old Faithful's eruption at 7:58 a.m. It was a very nice vantage point. We saw a colony of groundhogs (Daniel insists that they were yellow-bellied marmots) living in a pile of rocks.

When the girls woke up, we walked a nearby trail full of geysers. We saw Grand Geyser erupt - it is taller than Old Faithful, but it erupts less frequently. We also saw Daisy Geyser erupt. Daisy is an angled geyser that goes off every few hours.

Daisy Geyser.

We saw many inactive geysers, such as Giant Geyser. It is really big when it erupts (one of the biggest in the Park), but it hasn't erupted since April.

Grotto Geyser.

We were quite impressed with Grotto Geyser as it was a system of three inter-connected geysers, and they were all erupting quite a bit and putting on a good show. We hiked as far as Morning Glory Pool which was a long trail, especially for Katherine. We saw a wolf along the way. We also saw Sawmill Geyser erupt and others from a distance.

Morning Glory Pool.

We bought some lunchmeat and picnic foods at the Hamilton General Store and then drove to a beautiful spot near the Nez Perce River to enjoy a picnic. After our lunch, the kids and Jon went creeking.

The water was cold and the rocks were hard. After Daniel splashed Bethany and made her cry, Jon threw him completely into the creek.

Then we drove through Firehole Canyon Drive and stopped to see beautiful Firehole Falls. We saw lots of buffalo, including ones that were just walking down the street. One of them was a very young calf.

We drove the Virginia Falls loop and saw Virginia Falls. We stopped near Canyon to get out and looked at the Upper Falls.

We then took a hike down a steep path to view the Lower Falls. Jon and Katherine turned around halfway there, but Mom and Bethany went further and Daniel went all the way to the bottom.

We saw a huge herd of buffalo (which we call "tatanka" as Jon learned from "Dances With Wolves") of over 150 grazing near the road. Jon and Daniel stopped to see some sulphur springs (whew!) and a mud volcano.

Mud Volcano.

Dragon's Mouth Spring.

We were supposed to have supper with the Lewis Family, but Bethany Lewis fell in the late afternoon and hurt her arm very badly. She had to be taken to a hospital in Jackson by ambulance. Since Tal may have needed picked up that evening, we cancelled our dinner plans with the other Lewises and drove back to Old Faithful.

We ate supper at the Old Faithful Lodge, arriving just as Old Faithful was erupting again. Mom and the girls did some shopping while Daniel and Dad checked out other eruption predictions at the Visitor Center. Bethany and Katherine each bought a gray wolf stuffed animal and named them Dawn and Rose.

While we waited to hear back from Tal, we went to Castle Geyser and saw it erupt at 8:35 (prediction was between 7:30 and 9:30). Thus we witnessed eruptions of five of the six geysers that are predicted: Old Faithful, Great Fountain, Grand, Daisy, and Castle. We only didn't catch Riverside. It was never going off at a doable time for us.

Then the whole family went and did more shopping in the Hamilton General Store. We saw another wolf or coyote. We came home to our cozy cabin and wrote postcards, watched TV, and prepared for our last day in Yellowstone. We heard back from Tal that Bethany Lewis needed surgery and was to stay in the hospital overnight, so Jon was not able to go pick them up. We settled in for our last night at Yellowstone.

P.S. Here is an update to our license plate game. By the time we arrived in Yellowstone, we only needed to spot four more plates! Jon saw Massachusetts and Debbie found Alaska, so now that just leaves us with Rhode Island and Hawaii!