Cross-Country Vacation
Day 9: Yellowstone: Geyser Country
Monday, September 11, 2006
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We woke up within walking distance of Old Faithful. I went and checked on the eruption times and came back to the cabin with my report. I had time to then go fill-up the car with gas beforehand. I drove over to the service station and guess what? They had all new pumps that took credit cards right there and it was open 24 hours! Apparently Grant Village was the only service station in the park that had not been upgraded to run un-attended. So it was just very bad luck that I had not been able to get gas there the night before.
With all of the complaining, though, Dawn made herself sick. It seems like every vacation she gets a little under the weather and grumpy. So she stayed in the cabin to rest some while Cheryl, George, Mary and I caught Old Faithful (it was right on time) and then had breakfast inside of the Old Faithful Inn.
Old Faithful lies in the Upper Geyser Basin. We picked Dawn up and headed up the road to another part of the Upper Geyser Basin called Black Sand Basin.
The roads inside Yellowstone form a giant figure-8. The Upper Geyser Basin lies toward the lower left of the figure. The plan for this day was to circle some of the bottom half of the 8 in a clockwise direction. So from here we would head north towards a junction called Madison, which would take us past the Midway and Lower Geyser Basins.
But Dawn still was not feeling well, and unfortunately there were no restrooms at the Black Sand Basin and none shown on the map until Madison. So we back tracked back to Old Faithful and happened to get there just before another scheduled eruption. Since Dawn had not seen the first one we waited to let her see this one. While it was faithful the first time, this time it teased and acted like it was going to erupt but then held back. It was almost 5 minutes later that we finally got to see it again. It looked the same as the first time, so I did not both taking pictures.
We finished with the Upper Geyser Basin at a pull-off called Biscuit Basin.
The Grand Prismatic Spring part of the Midway Geyser Basin was very colorful, and as it turned out, there were restrooms here that were not on the map. Oh well.
After turning onto Firehole Lake Drive we spotted our first big game, a grasshopper.
I mean a buffalo.
Great Fountain Geyser followed by White Dome Geyser.
Fountain Paint Pots in the Lower Geyser Basin.
More big game near Fountain Flat Drive; this time a couple of bison.
You can tell the bison and buffalo apart by the color of their hide and their mane. Buffalo have darker hide and curly hair in the mane, while bison are larger and have tan colored hide and straight hair.
Apparently some people cannot tell, though, without a closer look. We saw one idiot actually wander out into this field to get close-up photos. He was closer to the bison than to his car, so if the bison had decided to charge him, he would have lost the race. More people are injured in Yellowstone by getting gored by buffalo and bison than by anything else, but some people just do not heed the warnings.
Firehole Canyon Drive and Firehole Falls.
Buffalo and geese by the Gibbon River near Madison junction.
Tuff Cliff and Gibbon Falls.
Beryl Spring where a mother elk and her young calf (both tagged with radio collars) were feeding.
Artists Paintpots. It really did look like a painter's palette from above.
We also stopped at Norris junction and Cheryl and I walked a little ways and checked out some of the Norris Geyser Basin. We also drove the short side road passed the Virginia Cascade on the way to Canyon Village, but I guess I did not take any pictures of that.
Originally we thought we might make it to Yellowstone Lake to maybe try a cruise or have dinner on the lake, but it was almost 5 by the time we got to Canyon Village. So we checked into our cabin and then had dinner there. Dawn and George and Mary decided to turn in after that, but there was still a little daylight left, so I thought I would drive down and at least check out the lake. Cheryl came along for the ride.
We barely got out of Canyon Village and turned onto the main road when we encountered a traffic jam! Yes there were several cars stopped, but it was not as much a traffic jam of cars as it was a traffic jam of buffalo. The heard wanted to cross the road, and they had the right-of-way.
We probably spent about 20 minutes watching them as they went by. Some of them dusted themselves in the field while some of the males paired off and started sparring and some of the young tried to nurse. We got back in the car and went just a few hundred feet over the hill and on the next ridge there was a heard of elk being led by a 12-point buck.
About halfway to the lake we saw many cars parked at a turnoff so we had to stop there. There was a guy with a very powerful telescope setup. He said that there had been a grizzly bear sighted along the edge of the forest to the east at about this same time for the last few nights. He was very kind and let people take turns looking in the scope. At one point he found a wolf and I had a look at it.
Finally he found the grizzly, but it was moving very fast and hard to keep up with. I took this picture in the general direction everyone was looking. By now it was getting too dark to get a good focus, but somewhere in there is a bear.
By the time we made it to the lake, the sun was completely set and we could not see anything. But having it pitch black had its advantages. We stopped at the same turnout where the bear watching had been on the way back. Everyone was gone, of course, and when we shut off the cars lights there was not a single light anywhere on the horizon. The night sky was completely clear and the start shone brilliantly. It was just too bad that Dawn and George and Mary had missed all of the excitement.
Yellowstone National Park: Website, Map
Day 9 Summary:
Start: Old Faithful Geyser, Yellowstone National Park, WY
End: Canyon Village, Yellowstone National Park, WY
Route: US-191/US-287/US-20/US-89
Approximate Driving Distance:
This Day: 50 miles
Total: 2210 miles
Next: Day 10: Yellowstone: Canyon Country and Mammoth Hot Springs