At Old Faithful

This morning found us heading back in to Yellowstone. There were things that we wanted to see but couldn’t yesterday. It started out as a gorgeous morning (we were getting spoiled by the weather we have been given). We took pictures of the Roosevelt Arch and headed on in.

The first stop was Artist Painted Pots. This was a collection of bubbling pools along a hillside. This is also where we ran into the hippies. As we pulled into the parking area we saw two VW Microbuses. One guy reminded me a little bit of Fred from Scooby-Doo, so he became Fred to us. As we walked the trail to reach the Painted Pots we came upon our Microbussers swapping Microbus wisdom and lore. It was like a weird mix between a muscle car meet up and reenactment of Woodstock. By the way, if you upgrade your Microbus engine to the Subaru engine make sure to upgrade the transmission at the same time. Apparently that will save you money later. This blog is for you, dear reader (Mom) so I want to give you the best information that I have available.

Once we left Artist’s Painted Pots we went to another site with these bubbling mud pits. They are really cool to watch. They bubble like chocolate on the stove and are the result of volcanic activity plus water plus microbes that help to create the clay that we see bubbling. However, by the time we were ready to go see what I am sure was a beautiful geyser at Lower Geyser Basin the weather had turned. The sun was obscured. The rain was sprinkling down. Suddenly a strong wind came upon us, threatening to blow my beautiful wife off of the safe pathway and onto the hellish ground that opens to Hell. So we left.

We next visited Old Faithful. This visit was more timely. About 10 minutes after we got to the geyser it went off. We saw why it is so famous. The eruption lasted for two full minutes and the water went up 20 or 30 feet. Amazing. Just amazing.

While we were waiting for Old Faithful to give us a show we had a wonderful woman offer to take our picture. This type of generosity and friendliness has been the rule during our time out West. We have not advertised our newlywed status. People are simply generous and kind. This has made our time out here even more pleasant.

After Old Faithful we started heading out. On the way we saw a crowd of people staring into the woods. Of course that meant that we had to look too. We saw a very large creature grazing. The woods were thick there, so I never got a view of the entire body at once so it’s hard to say for sure. I believe it was a moose (based on her size more than anything else).  Some of our fellow travelers believed it to be an elk. Whatever it was we enjoyed watching her do her thing the way God designed her to do. We rolled out of Yellowstone from the Southern entrance and went into Teton National Park. Here we saw the Tetons (surprise!) They are more rugged than the mountains in Yellowstone. Steph took some pics that she will share soon.

We drove through the night to Lander WY. We have started our homeward journey. It’s late. Good night all.

J