Day of Adversity

It was time to wake up and check out of Old Faithful Inn.  It started off as a cold and rainy day, chilly enough for a fire in the lobby.  (Check out the Old Faithful geyser on the screen!)

We once again had breakfast and also bought some picnic items for lunch: Chicken Salad Croissant for Debbie and Turkey on Kaiser Roll for me.  We packed up our bags and loaded the car in the rain, catching one more eruption of Old Faithful (That made a total of 5 viewings for Jon and 3 for Debbie on this trip.)  

While Debbie read, I took the Old Faithful Inn tour and learned a lot of interesting facts, which I will share now so that I will be able to recall them years from now!

The Old Faithful Inn’s architect was originally from Ohio.

The materials to build the Inn all came from within about 5 miles of its location.

The Inn was built in less than a year.

The Inn had indoor plumbing, heat and electricity when it opened.

The lodgings in Yellowstone are all spaced out about 20-30 miles apart which represented a day’s stagecoach ride for the travelers who would journey from inn to inn on their tour package.

After checking out, we began our journey northward for the day, knowing that we had to reach Mammoth Hotel by 4 pm for our evening Wildlife Tour.  Our first stop was the Grand Prismatic Spring since we had to abandon it the evening before.  Unfortunately, on this "day of adversity," the weather conditions made it hard to see anything through the rain and steam!

We briefly stopped for a nostalgic memory of the Nez Perce picnic area where we had had such a great time creeking with the kids in 2008:

We visited a couple of waterfalls (Firehole Falls, which we had seen before) and Gibbon Falls (which was new, I think.)  The parking lot at Gibbon Falls became the scene of a car picnic since it was pouring rain.  It was a disaster.  A sizable chunk of Debbie's chicken salad escaped the croissant and ended up catastrophically wedged between her seat and the console.  My poor car.

I was delighted to be able to tour another new (to us) area - the Norris Geyser Basin.  This section includes some of the hottest features of the park.  One geyser was constantly erupting.  We got our passport stamp and perused the exhibits.  The weather continued to be difficult, but it was beginning to get better by this point.

We saw other sights on our way to our animal tour, including Roaring Mountain, Obsidian Cliff, Sheepeater Cliff, Rustic Falls (which we had nicknamed "Wedding Cake Falls" in '08!), and Mammoth Hot Springs.

Arriving in Mammoth, we toured the visitor center and got our passport book stamped.  Then we headed to the hotel to meet our guide for the night: Katie from Ohio.  Several others joined us for this wildlife tour in a large van which became one of the real highlights of our time at Yellowstone.  Despite this being a day of adversity, over the course of four hours we saw several black bears, an elk, a fox, peregrine falcons, bighorn sheep, pronghorn, a moose, a badger, and many bison.  Some of our best shots:

The day of adversity complete, we drove through the deepening darkness to our new room at Canyon Lodge.  More about that area tomorrow!

Two Inches on the Map

On Friday, we awoke early.  I was commissioned by Debbie to go down to the Inn's snack bar and procure breakfast.  Maybe I have some old hunter-gatherer blood in my veins, because I returned triumphantly with a breakfast sandwich and apple juice for her as requested.  For myself, I was only searching for milk to go with my Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal, but they were out.  I had to pay for the more expensive Almond Milk.  It was the first time I ever had it, having always been a little suspicious of how they can milk almonds.  I was surprised to discover that it was very sweet.  I’ve added it to my list of likes.

The National Park Service helpfully publishes the predicted eruption times of six of the main geysers in the area.  Old Faithful was due to erupt around 10, but by the time we arrived, it was apparent that we had just missed it.  We decided to walk around the geyser basin and see if we could catch the Grand Geyser which was anticipated to erupt around 10:45.  We got there in time but had to wait about an extra half hour until it went off.  It was worth the wait as it put on a good show.  

We continued around the basin, observing many hot springs, geysers and various geothermic features.  We tried to wait out Castle Geyser but it was past an hour late and we wanted to make it back to Old Faithful which was scheduled to erupt shortly after noon.

Fortunately, when we arrived at Old Faithful, the large crowd was a tell that we hadn’t missed the show this time!  In fact, as we waited, nearby Beehive Geyser suddenly erupted and we were able to witness that.  

Just a few minutes later, Old Faithful did its thing, too.

Then it was time for our lunch stop at the nearby Old Faithful Lodge cafeteria.  We each had a slice of pepperoni pizza (I helped Debbie with hers) and shared a piece of what I think was strawberry rhubarb pie.  We next hit the visitor center and got our first passport stamp at Yellowstone.  We were then able to catch Old Faithful's next eruption.

In the afternoon, we went to another geyser area we had never seen before: West Thumb near Grant Village.  These hydrothermic springs were situated along the shore of the west thumb of Yellowstone Lake.  Some of the features are even in the lake itself!

We headed over to Grant Village for the passport stamp and a dinner of a burger and fries which we shared.  While there, Debbie saw a huckleberry display that got her very excited.  A huckleberry chocolate bar souvenir was purchased.

On the trip back, we stopped at an old favorite: Kepler Cascades.

Returning to the Old Faithful area, we stopped at the Grand Prismatic Spring.  Unfortunately, we chose the Overlook instead of the Trail.  It was a much longer hike and out 2/3 of the way there it began to pour.  We decided to turn around.

We made it back to the Inn and went for ice cream as a reward for all the steps we had walked that day (give a count).  Debbie had Huckleberry and I had Maple Nut.  This time there was a pianist playing for the guests.  We caught Old Faithful erupting again that evening.

It was a good, successful day at Yellowstone, but I was a bit discouraged that we had managed to cover only about two inches of the park map!