Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Day Three - Yellowstone


This morning, Brin and I heard Tammy calling for us to quickly come upstairs. When we got there, what we saw from the large second floor windows were two elk grazing on the hillside, forty to fifty feet off our back patio. Amazing. The first photos in our day three album show what we saw.

The plan today is for a quick tour to begin orienting ourselves with Yellowstone.

Yellowstone is incredibly vast, and is so geologically diverse that it is generally considered to be five different parks or "countries" within one. The plan today is to visit the geothermal Old Faithful area.

Here is the stripped down play by play:

-Entered Yellowstone from the south, drove through many many miles of beautiful country that still shows the obvious effects of the 1988 fires (the dead trees no longer look charred, but more like bleached poles standing as far as the eye can see, with thousands of evergreens reclaiming the forest below - the fire damaged areas are not at all unattractive, but instead have an eerie, alien beauty that is hard to describe)

- Had a picnic lunch at Lake Lewis, where it was quite chilly

- Visited the Old Faithful geyser with a thousand friends

- Hiked 3.5 miles among many of the geothermal pools, geysers, and other features of the area.

- Visited the Old Faithful Inn, which has been a highlight of the trip so far. The Old Faithful Inn was completed in 1904, and features a soaring atrium made from huge lodgepole pines. The extensive handmade detail involved in the construction is incredible, and everyone who walks in has the same awestruck reaction - truly a must-see. The second floor deck is a popular spot for geyser watching, and for sipping beer and wine, which many folks were doing. We opted, however, for a scoop of the inn's local huckleberry ice cream (huckleberries are a close cousin to blueberries, and are locally popular in jams, syrups, pies, etc.).

- Saw a herd of Bison, some of which decided to pause in the middle of the rode, blocking our route back to the Cabin (we didn't mind - Brin has a special love for Bison (both in the wild and on the dinner plate))

- Completed the long drive back to Jackson for a BBQ dinner

- Hot tubbin' back at the cabin, and finally to bed at a decent hour for the first time this trip

We have barely scratched the surface of Yellowstone, and will be making at least two more trips to this awesome place before we leave.

Be sure to take a look at our Day Three photo album.

NOTE - Click on the above photo for a larger view!

1 comment:

Granbarry Bowers said...

Isn't Yellowstone awesome?
So much to see and so little time!
Granbarry and Granpat