Yellowstone Day 1: The Lower Loop

It was time for us to move on to our next destination--Yellowstone National Park (YNP).  Established in 1872 as America's first national park, Yellowstone contains multiple ecosystems.  However, it is best known for wildlife and geothermic activity.  The Wife and I had both visited the park during our childhoods, but neither of us could recall much about the park.

We would have to drive back through Grand Teton National Park in order to get to YNP.  Since we were passing through Jackson again, The Wife insisted on stopping for breakfast at Persephone Bakery, an eatery that she had seen a few days before.  We were running behind schedule, so we got our food to go.  I wasn't too crazy about all the "healthy" options, but I did enjoy the Shakshuka that I had ordered.

Persephone porridge (quinoa, granola, cashews,
coconut, berries, maple syrup, almond milk)

Seeded Avocado bowl (smoked salmon, goat
cheese, capers, poached eggs, lentils, rye crisps)

Bread pudding French toast (cranberry grapefruit
compote, orange whipped cream, maple syrup)

Shakshuka (chickpeas, lentils, poached egg, tomato,
Swiss chard, feta cheese, coconut milk, baguette)

We stopped again at Schwabacher Landing, hoping that we would be luckier with wildlife sightings since it was still morning.  When we got to the waterfront, all that we saw were small, ordinary critters like ducks and chipmunks.

After lingering for awhile, I gave up on any further sightings.  I used the opportunity to make a pit stop at a nearby primitive restroom (toilet over a hole in the ground).

I can't imagine that it is humanly possible to poop like that.

On the way out of the restroom, I did spy the western end of a eastern-bound badger. But it quickly ran into the brush before I could alert the rest of the family.  As we were driving away from the landing, we noticed a small dog-like animal on a nearby hill.  The coyote sat there for a minute watching us before it too trotted off into the brush.

We continued on for another half an hour before we reached the edges of Yellowstone.  We made a brief stop at Lewis Falls.  It was okay, but we could have easily have driven by it without missing out on anything.

Our journey eventually took us to the Grant Visitor Center, located at the edge of Yellowstone Lake.  The water was perfectly still and serene.

Our next stop was the nearby West Thumb Basin.  The geothermic area was created by a volcano eruption over 150,000 years ago.  The resulting caldera filled with water from the Yellowstone Lake.

I had made the mistake of reading the book Death In Yellowstone prior to our visit. As a result, I was pretty paranoid that one of my kids would do something reckless and fall into a boiling geyser.  I had a stern lecture with them not to deviate off the wooden walkways.  They rolled their eyes in disbelief that I would think that they would be so stupid.

Because of it's proximity to the West Thumb Basin, much of the geothermic activity is located underwater.  When the Yellowstone River freezes over in the winter, holes in the ice still remain over the underwater geysers.

When we had planned our trip, we had initially planned to drive past Yellowstone Lake and continue north until we reached the Tower area of the park.  Since we were making good time, we decided to head west towards the Old Faithful area.

Along the way, we made a brief stop at one area of the Continental Divide.  There was not much to see beside a small lily pond.

We made another stop at Kepler Cascades.  It was a little bigger and more impressive than Lewis Falls.

Once we arrived at the Yellowstone area, we faced the toughest part of our day--finding a place to park.  We drove around for about 15-20 minutes, going from one parking area to another before we finally found an opening.  We rushed to the geyser area only to see the tail end of an Old Faithful eruption.  Unfortunately, it would be another 90 minutes before there would be more activity.

Since we had a lot of time to kill, we viewed the exhibits and movie at the visitor center.  Then we headed over to the historic Old Faithful Inn.  Built in 1903, this multi-story structure is the largest log building in the world.  The Old Faithful Inn remains one of the most popular places to stay in the park.  Reservations fill up a year in advance.

During our wait, we also took the opportunity to eat the remaining pastries from Persephone Bakery.

Kouign Amann

Almond crossaint

Citrus cake

With another 30 minutes to go before the next estimate eruption, we headed over the bleachers to get a front-row seat for the show.  Without any shade, we were exposed to the sweltering sun.  As we waited and waited, we could see seismic activity from other faraway geysers in the area. 

We continued to wait and wait and wait.  We were wilting from the heat and slowly getting skin cancer,  As the minutes passed from the estimated time of eruption, we became more and more certain that we were seeing history as the first time Old Faithful had cheated.  Finally, the steam from the geyser was transformed into boiling water.  The eruption was finally beginning.  Everybody in the stands including The Kids were transfixed to the spectacle.  The eruption lasted for several minutes before it slowly died back down to gusts of steam belching from the ground.

Once the festivities were over, all of the tourists including us scurried away to our vehicles for a mass exodus from the area.  After fighting through traffic for some time, we arrived at the Black Sand Basin.  This group of small geysers was quite feisty.  Several of them were actively bubbling and others erupted (albeit weakly) every few minutes.  Despite the lack of grandiosity, it was still enjoyable waiting for the geysers at the Black Sand Basin to erupt.

Afterwards, we stopped at the nearby Biscuit Basin.  The name originates from the dough-like deposits that were originally found near one of the boiling pools.  Those deposits no longer exist, but the geothermal activity is still around.  The geysers are not quite as perky as those of Black Sand Basin.

Not only does the Shell Spring look like a butthole, but it also expels hot, smelly gasses too.

At this point in the late afternoon, we were already pretty tired.  The sun and heat were wearing us down, but we still had one more major geyser system to visit--The Midway Geyser Basin.  There are two ways that this area can be visited.  One is via walkways up close to the basins.  The other method is by a trail that leads to a scenic vista overlooking the Midway Geyser Basin.  We chose the former.  The Midway Geyser Basin a pretty popular area to visit as evinced by the completely full parking lot.  We had to park on the side of the road about one third of a mile away from the entrance.  We walked along a pathway that ran parallel to the Firehole River.  Boiling hot water from the geysers trickled down into the cold river producing clouds of steam.

Eventually, we made it to the entrance.  There were several small geysers, but the impressive sized one that caught our immediate attention was the Excelsior Geyser.  It has erupted haphazardly over the last 200 years spewing water up to 300 feet high.  But it has remained dormant over the last several decades.  As we saw earlier, it does constantly drain 4,000 gallons of water per minute.

But the biggest attraction that brings people to the Midway Geyser Basin is the Grand Prismatic Spring.  As the park's largest spring, it measures 370 feet across and 121 feet deep.  While the center of this pool has clear blue water, thermophile bacteria give it colorful outer edges of green and yellow.  The spring is 160 degrees Fahrenheit, so it is imperative to stay on the boardwalk.  We saw several hats lying a few yards away from the boardwalk.  On this windy day, a couple of hats were blown off and people just couldn't retrieve them.

It was nice seeing the Grand Prismatic Spring up close, but a grander view from the overlook on the opposite hill would have been nice.  We thought about travelling there next, but we were just too hot and tired to make the effort.

The Wife and The Kids were ready to head to our hotel and rest, but I was adamant that we should utilize all the benefits of the park.  Since we were already hot and sweaty, I decided that we should go swimming in the Firehole River.  Visitors can just jump in anywhere.  There is a designated swim area that I had read about online while planning the trip.  Since our hotel doesn't have a pool and it was on our way there, I thought it would be a nice activity to try.

Finding the swimming area was not that easy.  We ended up having to turn off on a one-way side road that ran adjacent to the river.  After several minutes we reached the Firehole Falls--with the word "falls" used pretty loosely.

After driving for several more minutes, we finally reached the swimming area.  There were already several cars parked on the side of the road, with people swimming down in the river.  The park service had constructed some basic changing rooms in that area.  We donned our swimsuits and walked down the stairs to the river.  The entry is pretty rocky and there really isn't a good place to sit or put one's belongs down.  Even with the boiling-hot springs emptying into the river upstream, the water was still pretty cold.  There were several signs for people to stay off  the rocks and not do any cliff jumping.  Without a ranger around, people naturally ignored these warnings.  Fortunately, the water is pretty deep below those cliffs so there weren't any traumatic accidents.

We waded in the river for the next half hour.  Near to the shore, the water was pretty slow and easy enough for a child to handle.  I decided to swim over to some of the rocks in the center of the channel.  Over there, the current was surprisingly swift.  I actually got a bit tired trying to swim upstream.

After we had cooled down and refreshed we hiked back up to our car.  It was then that I realized that my wedding band was nowhere to be found.  I looked frantically through the pockets of my swim shorts and every little nook and cranny in our vehicle.  It was soon evident that the ring had fallen off while we were in the river.  I hurried down and spent the next twenty minutes searching on the shoreline, in the shallows, and in the center channel of the river, but it was all in vain.  My wedding band was gone.  Naturally, The Wife was upset.  However, I was devastated.  I have worn that wedding band everyday for over 15 years.  It was the only consistent accessory that I had over that time.  Having lost my iPhone X and now my platinum wedding band within a two day span, I was realizing how financially and emotionally costly this trip was getting.

We drove for the next 30 minutes in silence until we reached the Canyon Lodge and Cabins. When planning our trip more than half a year earlier, we weren't thrilled that there were no vacancies at the nicer more expensive hotels around Old Faithful.  However, the accommodations at the Canyon Lodge actually turned out to be okay.  The rooms were a little tight for the four of us, but no worse than the other national park cabins and hotels that we had stayed the summer before.  Plus, the Canyon area would actually be more centrally-located and convenient for our itinerary.

We were quite exhausted by the time were were finished hauling all of our stuff into our hotel room.  Since cooking is technically not allowed inside the rooms of the Canyon Lodge, I bent the rules a little and took the Instant Pot outside to our porch and made a beef stew.

According to several websites, there is supposed to be Verizon cellular service in several areas of the park including the Canyon area where we were staying.  This was basically untrue as we received pretty much no service at all around our hotel.  The Kids were dismayed that they would be disconnected from the Internet for the next three days.  I really didn't care because I was sans a device anyway.  There would be plenty of nature to enjoy.