First Yellowstone Day & Old Faithful
Day 4
This morning, for whatever reason, I woke up before 5AM. Not wanting to get up, but pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep, I pulled my phone under the covers and did some writing for the blog. I am way behind, because usually on our trips, I write in the evening at a hotel with Wi-Fi, and that is not the kind of trip we are doing.
Around 6 AM, I walked the 200 steps (yes, I counted!) down to the lake for some quiet reflection. Looking out at the lake with the mountains rising behind them, I worshiped, and gave thanks to the Creator for this beautiful creation and our opportunity to see it up close. God is so good!
We shook the rain off the tent, and began to tidy up. Debbie heated up some more breakfast burritos for us just after 7AM. We had wrapped up camp and headed out by 8AM. Not too shabby!
It turned out it was a very short drive into Yellowstone from where we had camped.
We thought we were going to stop in a small town between the parks for gas, but it turned out to only be a forest service campground with a gas station.
We pulled over at the entrance and very willingly got our obligatory family pictures by the sign. 😉 Everyone seemed very happy to be doing Yellowstone.
We felt really blessed that there was no waiting to get in. The ranger said “I like your Santa Cruz. I’m saving up. It seems well suited to what I’m doing here.” We encouraged him that we love it and it would be. He assured us that we were about 20 miles from the nearest gas station, which was well within our range. This was good, because it meant we didn’t have to circle back to that little gas station we had passed.
Soon after, we stopped for some gas and ice. (We have been really pleased with the new R-Tic coolers we got ourselves for Christmas. We’ve been gone three days now, and they are still cool inside with only a single ice block in each!) Bryan washed most of the bugs off the front window, and off we went.
Our first real stop today was West Thumb Geyser Basin. As we turned into the parking lot Bryan and I totally lost our cool over the steam rising out of the ground at the entrance. “This is so cool! I am having lots of fun’!” We told each other. Apparently if we had looked the other way, as our friends in the following car did, we would have seen two elk grazing up close. Ah well, can’t see it all. 😄
In light of feeling slightly unprepared during yesterday’s hike, Debbie and I packed backpacks (water, bear spray, snacks, all the things) for what ended up to be a leisurely stroll on a boardwalk. There was also a sign at the trailhead that stated no food was allowed, so we encouraged the kids to gobble down their Z-bars before we started our walk.
This turned out to be a really great stop! I pulled up a self-guided audio tour on the national parks app that I had downloaded to my phone while we were at home, and it told us about the various pools and geysers, and the last time that they had erupted as we walked the loop.
It was a really neat first stop! We got to see bubbling pools of a wide variety of colors ranging from glacier blue to muddy clay. Sometimes the steam floating past made it feel like a steam bath or sauna, other times, the area reeked of sulfur. The boardwalk went between the pools and Yellowstone lake, and some of the domes were submerged due to snow melt. We watched a tour group paddle by on their kayaks. That looked like lots of fun! This boardwalk loop was by far the most Yellowstone-y thing I have ever done thus far.
Leaving West Thumb we drove west on the Yellowstone Loop Road heading up and crossing the Continental Divide multiple times. Passing by Old Faithful for now (we will be back and stay the night in this area later) we went up to the Midway Geyser Basin and Grand Prismatic Spring.
As the parking lot was very full, we parked on the side of the road and walked toward the spring. We were surprised to find that there was a bison on the path. We kept as much distance as we could, walked past, and were pleased it was more interested in chomping on grass than moving around too much.
The Grand Prismatic Spring was beautiful and colorful. We enjoyed the walk around the boardwalk, taking pictures.
It was past lunchtime at this point, and we decided to find a place for a picnic. Bryan and I were in the lead in the cruck, and turned off at the first picnic sign we saw. We pulled into a parking spot near a shady picnic table only to notice that the Williams’ vehicle was no longer behind us.
And, with no cell service, we were unable to let them know where we had turned off. Well, shoot. We decided to stay where we were and hope they managed to find the picnic turn off we had taken. We got our coolers out, made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and kept our eyes on the entrance to the parking lot. When we had finished off our grapes, and Pringles, and Bryan had repacked the coolers, we decided we needed to go down the road and try to find them. As we began to pull out, there they were coming into the parking lot. Thank you, Jesus!
Apparently, there had been some excitement in the vehicle behind us. Debbie described it as a significant bug incident. There were large beetles in the vehicle, including one in Easton’s hair. Having pulled over and resolved this issue, they then sped on down the road to find us, and didn’t see that we had pulled off at Whiskey Flats. Having survived the giant beetle incident of 2023 (or what Desmond prefers to refer to as “the attack of the giant beetles”) they sat down at a picnic table and ate their picnic lunch.
Next up was Fountain Paint Pots. I used another self guided audio tour on the app for some interesting facts and tidbits about the hydro thermal features. Bryan’s favorite at this stop was called Jet Geyser and sounded like an airplane.
It is important to know the plan at this point was to head to a hotel, take about four showers each, use the WiFi, and enjoy dinner at the restaurant. Oh… and of course see Old Faithful.
We saw a few more bison as we drove to our lodging. Bryan told us he hadn’t been able to get us into the old lodge, and that we would be staying at Old Faithful Inn. We parked in front of the impressive massive old wooden inn, and went inside to the front desk, excited to be staying there tonight. It turns out we had it backwards, the inn is the old one, and we had reservations for the lodge. Oh well.
While we waited for it to be time to check in, we visited the gift shop, and I purchased a deck of playing cards with pictures of Yellowstone on them. Desmond and I were about two rounds in on a game of war, when Bryan told us he had checked at the restaurant and found the only reservations left were for after 8:30 PM. So, no dinner in the restaurant.
We walked over to where we were directed for our lodging. It turned out that we were not in a lodge at all, but in rooms in small cabins. As we approached, they were certainly less inspiring than the inn had been. I reminded Desmond, “Hey Desmond, do you know what’s great about these cabins?” He admitted he didn’t. “Our attitudes! I’m going to go look for five things to like!”
We entered a small room with a queen and twin bed in it. The room was warm, and as I came in, Bryan broke the bad news to me that there was no shower in our private unit, and we would have to use the shared shower facilities nearby. “Well, that’s not one of the five things I like about this place.” “Agreed.” “Doesn’t seem like there’s any AC.” He indicated that I was correct, and informed me he was going to move the car.
Debbie came in to look around as well and let me know that their room was just the same. I asked about Wi-Fi, and she said she thought she remembered reading that there wasn’t any. Now I really was struggling to find what I liked. Ha! The place is clean, at least it has a fan, a private toilet is a step up from camping, and sleeping in a bed will be nice, I thought.
At this point, Desmond came in having looked at the Williams’ identical room in a nearby cabin and imparted the wonderful news that there was, in fact, a shower. Just behind the door when it opened into the tiny bathroom, there it was. Then Bryan came in and located the instructions for the WiFi. Things were looking up. As we were connecting our phones again, Desmond came in looking at us and shaking his head. “Nose in the phone! I can’t believe as soon as we have service you guys are both staring at your phones.” Touché, Buddy.
Next it was time to go and see Old Faithful. Our family climbed a few stairs and watched and waited from a shaded porch area. It was fun to see Old Faithful erupt, sending water high into the air. It lasted longer than I expected, about three minutes.
Next we went over to the visitor’s center to get stamps for our passports and pick up the Junior Ranger booklets for the kids. Since Desmond has been having fun collecting the badges, we wanted to get him a vest. Everywhere we had been so far only had size small, if they had them at all. This visitor center had junior ranger hats and some medium sized vests. Desmond tried them both on. The hat fit but the vest was a little small. We got the hat for him and walked over to the Yellowstone General Store for a chance at a vest that fit better. Bryan found an XL vest, and it fit great and will fit for a while.
With Desmond now looking quite official, we headed back to our room for a break. I took a shower, Bryan rested and posted some pics, and Desmond gave us a bad time about about us using our phones and then chose to read a book.
We walked over to meet up again with our friends and just missed Old Faithful erupting again. Oh well. As the eruption concluded, the mass of people watching stood and surged back toward the lodge and cafeteria where we planned to eat dinner. My heart sank. It was about 5:30. I had been a bit concerned it might be too busy. But as it turned out, we were practically the only ones going into the cafeteria for dinner at that time.
There were lots of really good food options. BBQ pulled pork, rice bowls, burritos, etc. I couldn’t find anything that sounded good at the time. I got myself some ice water and decided I would eat some bagged salad and maybe some chicken when we got back to the car. The boys had chicken burritos which they seemed to enjoy.
Bryan, unsurprisingly, decided after dinner it was time for some ice cream. He had seen some earlier today at the old inn, and this gave us an excuse to go look at the old log beam architecture. It sort of reminded me of Bear Country in Disneyland, but was far grander, of course. On our way to get dessert, we saw a sign that promised free tours of the inn. The times didn’t work for this trip, but that is definitely on our list for next time, along with staying in the inn itself. The inn is impressive, and I enjoyed the live piano music in the lobby as well.
There weren’t any non-dairy ice cream options, which was fine with me since I still hadn’t had dinner. But I did score myself a snack humus cup (which I recognized as one I’d had before when traveling, so I knew it was milk free). Desmond got a slushie.
We took our treats and began to walk toward Geyser Hill. Jamey had scouted ahead and told us this area was really cool and worth seeing. He was right. My favorite geyser from this area was the Anemone Geyser. This one spurted up unexpectedly, (“Woah!” Desmond said, taking a step back) put on a nice show, slashing four or so feet in the air, and then all the water drained out like a toilet flushing.
We waited on the Lions geysers hoping that it would have a big eruption while we were there. It kept bubbling up and splashing a bit, and we would get excited, then it would settle back down and just be steaming. Desmond would have patiently waited for quite a while, but it was getting toward bed time, it was hot, we hadn’t brought water, and the mosquitos were bugging us as well. We wisely decided to go back and call it a night.
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