RT Day 14 Yellostone 2

We had a lot of Yellowstone left and had planned an early morning but instead slept till 9:30. Once up we snacked on crackers and peanut butter and unpacked our site. We had a lot of room in the van and were camping in Yellowstone again so we really just tossed everything in the back.

We left the campsite and started heading towards Old Faithful. A few minutes later we saw a buffalo off in a field.

Then a few minutes later we saw one right by the road.

Then we realized we were headed to old faithful but had forgot to look at all the cool stuff near the canyon campsite. So we turned around a few times and eventually figured out how to get to the grand canyon of Yellowstone.

It was nothing like the other Grand Canyon we had seen but it was impressive and we could actually see the water. I was feeling so much better after a night of sleep and we decided to do a hike down to the lower waterfalls.

We would have liked to visit the upper waterfalls but just got close enough for a picture.

I think it was a mile hike and great going down. It was another zig zag trail that just wound back and forth to the bottom. This is looking down from a middle section of the trail.

It’s a little tough to see but the path just goes back and forth most of the way.

In no time we were at the falls.

The hike strait up was not quite so easy and we took a break or two.

there was a road along most of the canyon with spots to park and look over so in order to save time we did this and got some great views of the canyon and falls in.

We did another little hike to get to a lookout the other direction.

and on the way out we saw some giant nest with some kind of birds hovering above it and landing for a few minutes. I zoomed in 40x on the camera but we could still not tell much about what they were.

Then we left the canyon area and rejoined the trip to Old Faithful. On the way we had lots of places to visit with other interesting hot water, and rock creations.

The Grand Prismatic Spring and everything around it was probably the coolest stop on the way.

There were tons of springs and pools with a boardwalk all around.

There was a lot of really bright orange and yellow bacteria and some yellow and the water was ridiculously blue and clear.

It looked so tempting to get into, other then the boiling part that is.

We eventually made our way to Old Faithful.

Parking was terrible here and the crowds were in full force.

Here is my take on Old Faithful and really Yellowstone as a whole. From about 10am till 5pm the place is too crowded. If When I go back I would approach it differently. I’d make myself get up at 5am and start going places. The weather is great, the animals are out, the sun is amazing and you get a totally different perspective of these things when there are not a million people with you. Snack as you go then head to your campsite for an early lunch. After lunch take a nap and relax. Then eat a little something and go back out at 5pm and check things out, once again the weather, sun, and animals are better and the people are heading home for dinner. Stay out till the sun is going down, find a nice place to chill and watch it until it’s gone. Head back to camp for a simple meal of wine, cheese and crackers, jerky, fruit snacks and wine then get to sleep and repeat in the morning.

So we went to Old Faithful in the middle of the afternoon and apparently arrived just after an eruption. We listened to a ranger talk about it then wondered around a bit trying to figure it all out. We found out we had almost an hour and Heath and Peanut went to the store for ice cream.

Iz and I wondered a bit but she was ready to stretch her legs so we found an empty area of bench and I let her roam.
It was perfect for her because she could hold on, on either side and work her way around. Peanut and Heath joined us and then a few thousand other people and we watched the smoking pile turn into a squirting pile.

Honesly there is nothing that exciting about Old Faithful to me. How it works is cool but the only thing exciting about it is how frequent and regular it is. 2 other geyser went off near us while in the geyser basin and they were both better. One was a lot bigger and both were surprises.

After Old Faithful went and we all cheered we went for a hike in the geyser basin. Once again there was a boardwalk to keep you from the boiling water and we worked our way around a good part of it. This area was much cooler and we wanted to get to our campsite at a reasonable time but there was just too much cool stuff to see.
I’m pretty sure this is the one that was going off in the picture above.

Pumpkin fell asleep and the rest of us rushed from thing to thing.

We stopped off at the Old Faithful Inn and I was super impressed.

I counted 6 stories all logs and rocks and some real attention to detail. They must have spent a lot of time finding logs with all the perfect curves and then the 2 sided fireplace was at least 12ft by 12ft at the base.

Then we did some more looking around before finding the car.

We drove to Peanut’s Village campground for obvious reasons. In about 15 minutes we pulled in set up everything and left. We went to a ranger program we thought would be great but was just some guy whistling like birds. Then we went to the general store to look for some meat to add to the dinner for that night. It was almost 9:00pm. We found meat but the store also sold burgers and stuff ready to go. We decided to already cooked food so we could get to bed sooner and be prepared for an early start the next day.

Looking back I would have skipped the ranger program and cooked our own meal because the burgers took forever and the place closed right after serving us so we had to shovel them in as best we could. We got back to our campsite and quickly changed locked everything that smelled up in the van and went to sleep. We didn’t even bother with the crib.