Day 8: Water Going Up, Water Coming Down

Today is my birthday, and one of the more memorable ones I've ever had. Due to the horrendous weather yesterday evening, not to mention the traffic jam due to the elk sighting, we headed back over to Yellowstone for a bit. We didn't want to leave without seeing Old Faithful erupt. Again, due to just how huge Yellowstone is, there's no such thing as a quick jaunt in. Just getting from our entrance gate to the main road that loops inside the park is 14 miles.

Our first stop was the Grand Prismatic Springs, a large hot spring that creates multiple colors. It's so amazing that you can even see the steam rise in multiple colors.

From there it was off to Old Faithful, our last stop before hitting the road again for Salt Lake City. And we immediately got stuck in a 40-minute traffic jam due to a bear sighting. By the time we got to the bottleneck, though, the bear was already gone. That didn't stop several people from getting out of the cars and wandering the woods as human bear bait.

Luck was with us though, when we got to Old Faithful. When we saw hundreds of people sitting on the benches surrounding the geyser, we figured it must be soon. The next predicted eruption was only twenty minutes away, plus or minus ten minutes. We sat and waited, wondering if it would rumble or something beforehand. The steam would increase, then decrease. Then suddenly, it bubbled up and shot up some 100 feet in the air. Talk about incredible! Truly an awesome sight.

Mission accomplished, we hit the road again. Or at least, we attempted to, as it took us another 45-min or so to get back out of the park.

When we finally got out of the mountains of Montana, we drove through endless miles of Idaho farmland (potatoes?). We noticed that the landscape, save for the farms (and lots of irrigation systems), was much more arid. That makes farms in every state through which we've driven.

The trip back to Yellowstone put us way behind schedule. We had 6:30 dinner reservations at the Garden Restaurant (overlooking Temple Square), at which we'd eaten 13 years ago on our last trip across the country, which wasn't going to happen. We also had lawn tickets that Marsha bought as my birthday present to a show presented by Glenn Beck called "The Man in the Moon" (which we had no idea what it was).

But due to a gigantic thunderstorm, we decided to pass on the show (now we still don't know what it is) and do dinner anyway. The restaurant was just as terrific as we remembered. Afterwards, with a break in the weather, we explored the Temple grounds and peeked into the tabernacle.

The Temple grounds are just beautiful, with numerous fountains and flowers everywhere. We couldn't get enough of the fountains. Despite the rain and the change of plans, it turned out to be an awesome birthday after all.

Day 7: Bison, and Geysers, and Bears, Oh My!

Today we spent the whole day at Yellowstone. It was amazing, astonishing, breathtaking, thrilling, terrifying, miserable, and a host of other adjectives. And we loved every minute of it! 

Words can't begin to describe just how awesome and awe-inspiring this park is. Or just how ginormous. Neither can photos begin to do it justice, because photos just can't even attempt to capture the sheer vastness of it all. You drive around one mountain, and there's another behind it, and another one after that, too.

I sort of got an idea yesterday as we were driving here, and I saw an exit for the Northeast Gate, and then some two hours later we turned to head towards our entrance, the West gate. It takes a good hour to move between each location in the park. 

We definitely got our fill of wildlife today. As with Custer, every time we saw cars stopped we looked for animals, and were not disappointed. We saw a bald eagle (perfect for 4th of July holiday), though only Madison could photograph it with her non-iPhone camera. Then we got out of the car and crossed a field to a riverbank where we saw two Bull Elks grazing.

Later we took a six-mike trek down an unpaved road up and down the mountainside where we managed to spot a young bear, but he was too elusive to photograph. I think Madison just managed to catch his backside.

Later in the evening, we saw several bison in one area. We noticed, though, that they were never in herds, always by themselves. Even the ones that we saw together were apart from each other.

Finally, we saw a bunch of Elk as we were leaving the park. First, a couple of mothers with their young ones, and then an entire herd out in a field.

The equally thrilling and terrifying parts were driving around the park, up and down the mountains. Most of the roads have no guard rails and no embankment either, so there's just a foot or so between you and eternity. Same with riding by several of the rivers. While it was nearly warm this morning (we should have skipped the shorts, but luckily we brought hoodies), we had bouts of rain and cooler weather this afternoon. And then, on our way to dinner at the Old Faithful Inn, we had heavy rain and flooding, all while driving just a few feet from the river. And then a hail storm!

We almost didn't make it to dinner on time, thanks to the weather an an earlier traffic jam due to a bunch of people who had stopped to look at some Bull Elks (maybe the same two we saw this morning). I had bison and Pheasant sausage. Got Marsha and Madison both to try the bison sausage, which tasted like kielbasa (not chicken). Marsha was reluctant, and definitely didn't like it. Madison agreed with me. The Inn itself was fantastic. I really wish we'd had time to explore. Very much like Disney's Wilderness Lodge, except that this is the real deal.

With more impending rain, we finally got to see Old Faithful. We didn't get to see it erupt, unfortunately. Have to go back in the morning for that. We did see quite a few hot springs with bubbling water and steam blowing in all directions. Everywhere you look in Yellowstone, there's something unique and incredible to see. One day wasn't enough to see it all, but we sure did our best!

Day 6: Bear Left. No, Straight Ahead!

We saw a bear!

No sense in saving the most exciting part of our day to the end, when it actually happened. We were driving down 191 in Montana to West Yellowstone (not to be confused with the main part of Yellowstone, in Wyoming), and he (or she) just ran across the highway in front of us! Luckily, he was a good enough distance away so that we didn't have to worry about hitting him. Marsha tried to snap a picture, but he was too quick.

Okay, now for the rest of our day, which still ended up being pretty awesome. We left Keystone, as well as South Dakota, early this morning for our drive to West Yellowstone. For some reason, we were thinking this was a short drive. But upon further investigation, it was actually to be one of our longest. Back on I-90, of course!

As we headed towards Wyoming, we realized that we were going right by Deadwood. We didn't have time to stop, but we couldn't resist riding through to have a look around. First time we've seen a whole town on the Register of Historic Places. The town was pretty cool, and someplace we'd love to visit if we ever make it up this way again. We also passed through Rapid City, which has statues of every U.S. President on each street corner.

While we were sad to leave South Dakota behind, our timing couldn't have been better. There was a big storm behind us, so we had a good amount of rain before we managed to drive through it.

Then came the downside of our day. Despite the fact that we have our GPS set to stick to main highways, it likes to take us on secondary highways anyway and on more than one occasion when we didn't know enough to question, it has cost us a lot of time. That was the case today. It steered us onto Highway 212 through Wyoming and Montana before eventually rejoining I-90 many hours later. But the worst part was the beginning, which took us through a little town called Belle Fourche, where we got stuck for quite a while. They were having their 4th of July parade and, even though a major highway runs through their town, didn't think to put in a detour (unlike Bozeman, Montana, who wisely did).

By the time we got through Belle Fourche and realized that we should have just stayed on I-90, it was too late to turn around without having to go through town again. So, off we went down a two-lane highway through the corner of Wyoming and across a few hundred miles of Montana farmland. Again, it was literally another one of those "last chance for gas next 150 miles" places. There was one tiny gas station where everyone that was on the highway with us (just a few cars, but a lot for only two pumps) stopped to gas up.

Eventually, we turned south for our final leg to West Yellowstone. There, the countryside was just breathtaking. A river ran along the highway with mountains on either side. Madison played appropriate music from Frontierland to set the mood. That's when we saw the bear and later on, a deer, too. Some of the greatest beauty our country has to offer. Perfect way to spend the 4th.

We finally made it to West Yellowstone more or less on schedule, and found its a little bigger than we expected. After checking into our hotel, we walked the couple of blocks to "Main Street." We stopped for dinner at the Slippery Otter, where I had a bison burger. Madison tried it, but I couldn't get Marsha to, since we'd spent the last couple of days trying to see them.

Finally, we stood outside and watched the local fireworks. Again, a perfect ending to an interesting day.