Day 10

Having heard that yellowstone gets busy around the middle of the day and sights tend to be much less crowded during early morning and late evening, we got up early in an attempt to have the park to ourselves for at least a little while. This was a good plan in theory, but didn’t account for it being extremely cold at 6am, making us not excited to get out of the car to see these sights. But we drove around the southern loop for a while and made it to the grand canyon of the yellowstone, this deep, narrow canyon with two huge and beautiful waterfalls at its mouth. We took lots of pictures, and our walks out to the viewpoints were in fact not crowded at all, though, as we expected, they got busier and busier as the morning went on.

We visited the canyon’s visitor center, which i have to say is the most fancy, informative and interactive visitor center i’ve ever seen.

As the day went on we drove back around the south end of the park, along yellowstone lake, seeing bison here and there. We stopped at a place called ‘mud volcano area’ which smelled terrible but had some amazing geothermal features. Along the short trail around the area we watched a bison advance on a visitor who had ignored the multitude of signs that say ‘do not approach bison’. The bison evidently was bluffing, but the person backed off to be sure. People are stupid.

In the afternoon we made our way back to the old faithful area, to take showers and do some laundry before our dinner reservation at the old faithful inn. Showers were again wonderfully refreshing.

The old faithful inn is definitely my favorite lodge we’ve seen so far on this trip. It is amazing. I can’t really even describe it, it’s crazy. Just go visit. The food was good, we ate bison. I tried not to picture them wandering around with their crazy beards and shaggy coats. It was pretty tasty.

In the evening we caught old faithful’s eruption again, and then walked out to daisy geyser which was scheduled to erupt ‘within 30 minutes of 7:30’ according to the visitor center. We got there at about 7:20, and there were two other people waiting (which was quite nice compared to the hundreds that watched old faithful with us). The four of us waited until 8:05 and then jeff and i got up and left, but just as we were walking away we saw it start, and it was really cool. Not as tall as old faithful but very interesting, it shoots out at an angle. Our bitterness and frustration instantly turned to relief.

Em.