Friday 6/24

So exciting!!!, a photo by Olivia Linkel on Flickr.

I woke up again at 5:45 and went to take a shower at the bath house. It turns out that the noise Scott heard at our door was actually a hat and two kid’s camera bags falling off of a hook by the door. Kind of funny if you ask me. The bathhouse didn’t open for showers until 7 so I walked over to Pam’s cabin and took a shower there. We were rolling out of the campground with Pam and me in her rental Suburban and Scott driving the FunV with all three kids around 7. It was a pretty drive but still no sign of the mama Grizzly who is raising 3 cubs in the area of our campground. We thought we saw one up on a hill as we drove my but it was too fast and far to see. We made good time on the Rockefeller Parkway and stopped to take a picture in front of the Yellowstone entry sign.
There is still tons of snow on the ground in certain areas of Yellowstone. We drove up from the South Entrance all the way to Old Faithful. We stopped at the Continental Divide twice. Once just to take a picture with the sign and the second to see the spot where on one side, the creek flows in one direction and on the other side it flows in the opposite direction. At this spot, the creek was still ice and the kids through rocks from the bank, trying to break the ice. We stopped at Kepler Cascades and saw the water flowing down the Spring Creek. At this point, I found that I had cell service and I checked to see what time Old Faithful was going to go off. It was 9:30 and she was supposed to go at 9:56, +/- 10 minutes. If we hurried, we could make it in time so we hopped back in the car and FunV and drove over to the parking lot. We hurried to get out of the vehicles and over to the viewing benches and within 10 minutes of getting there, it went off. It was awesome!! About the time she finished, a huge storm cloud was moving in with thunder and lightning so after talking to a few friends/family on the phone, and having them see us on the Old Faithful webcam, we headed indoors to start working on the junior ranger books. Then the rangers announced that Beehive Geyser was about to go off and so we headed back outside to view that. It was an even bigger blast than Old Faithful and much less predictable so we consider ourselves lucky to have seen it. The wind was getting stronger and it was much cooler so we went inside and saw the video about Yellowstone and then it was time for Old Faithful to erupt again so Luke, Pam and I went out to see it go off. Luke got his picture taken with the steam coming out of his head. It was pretty funny. The girls were too cold so they stayed inside and watched. Almost immediately after Old Faithful goes off, they show a video about Geysers so we went inside to watch that and Riley was so exhausted from the excitement of the flight and traveling, that she fell asleep. We decided it was time for lunch so we headed back to the FunV and made some lunch.
After lunch, the storms moved out and we headed out on a hike from Old Faithful up to Obsevation Point which rises about 200 feet in a half mile and is a great place to view Old Faithful going off. We arrived at the summit about 45 minutes before it was expected to erupt and decided not to stay and watch but we did get to see a family of about 6 or 7 Yellow Bellied Marmots scampering amongst the rocks and dead trees. They were quite fun to watch.
Next we headed to Solitary Geyser which was our first experience with a smelly, rotten egg geyser. There were lots of jokes about the smell. We stayed to see it erupt twice, about 3 feet every 5 minutes and then headed down to the boardwalk trail all the way to Morning Glory Pool. I will be honest and say that we did not check any of the mileage before we left and had no idea that we were in for such a long hike. Pam stopped at Castle Geyser and we continued on. My feet were starting to hurt and I wished like mad that I had my flip flops. I think the last two months I have spent wearing them to work and everywhere else has made real shoes nearly unbearable. After passing by geysers, fumaroles and springs too many to count, we finally made it to the bathroom just before Morning Glory. And just so you know, when I say bathroom, I really mean outhouse with a modern toilet seat and real toilet paper with a decent building around it. After a bathroom/snack break we were getting our stuff together and then noticed that there was a bison off in the woods and then we noticed that there were several more bison. That was exciting for the kids. We walked over to have a look at Morning Glory, which sadly is not as beautiful as it once was because of people. Over the years, people have thrown trash and pennies and all kinds of stuff into the pools and hot springs and this changes the chemical composition of the water and often kills the bacteria in the pools causing them to lose their colors. Even when the parks service removes the debris blocking the spring, the harm remains. It is really sad because a lady who was standing beside us said when she was a girl and used to come to Yellowstone, Morning Glory was a beautiful blue. It is still pretty but not nearly as spectacular as it once was.
Finally we were headed back towards Old Faithful and it was a long walk. All of the kids were getting worn out and at Castle Geyser we took a long time to watch as it was going off. This one erupts for about 20 minutes but apparently is not on a regular interval so I think we were pretty lucky to see that one as well. In total, we walked a little over 5 miles and we were beat. All we wanted to do was sit and when we finally made it back to the Old Faithful Inn, we were so happy to have the leather chairs to sit in to wait for dinner. The lobby of the inn is an incredible display of woodwork and old timey charm. I can see why it is such a popular place to stay. We managed to get in 30 minutes before our reservations for dinner. Pam and I had Elk burgers which tasted just like beef only much leaner. Scott had bison ravioli which he enjoyed. Lorelei and I opted for dessert. She had ice cream and I had blueberry scones topped with whipped cream and blueberry compote. It was incredibly delicious and I would highly recommend that if you ever get the chance.
We were beat so after a stop into the bookshop for our passport stamps and a stop into the gift shop where Scott got a hat, we started the drive towards the Canyon Lodge. Unlike most trips, we decided to get hotel rooms for our stay in the park. Canyon will be our base and we will use Pam’s rental car to see the areas of the park while the FunV waits for our departure.
On our drive we passed back over the continental divide and the spot where the kids have thrown rocks at the icy creek was now melted. We passed the Lake Village at Yellowstone Lake and then entered the Hayden Valley. This is well known for having animal sightings and since we were coming through close to duck we figured we might be lucky. We stopped to watch some elk grazing in a grassy area off the road and then at another spot to see some bison in the distance. Pam and I saw some people at one overlook and we asked them what they were looking at and they said a grizzly that was now gone but they also told use there were some more up the road. And indeed there were. We got caught in our first bear jam. There was a mama grizzly and her two cubs feeding in a little valley. People were pulled off all over the road and we stopped to take pictures and let the kids look through our crappy binoculars. I knew I should have bought that $1200 camera lens!!! My pictures are ok once I get them on the computer and zoom in. You can at least tell it is bears. One interesting thing to note is that, we saw some complete idiots walk out on the hill above where the grizzlies were feeding to get a closer look. All of us thought they were crazy. We finally made it through the bear jam and were all so excited. We saw a few more bison right by the road as we entered the Canyon area and then we were at the lodge. We got checked in, made our plans for the next day, showered and were asleep as our heads hit the pillows.