Today's adventure begins where yesterday's left off. We awaken to another beautiful day on this road trip in the town of Cody, WY. Our schedule for the day is to do as much of Yellowstone National Park in 12 hours as humanly possible, and get out before dark.
After cataloging the journey thus far in my last entry, I realized today is the last day of sightseeing in this adventure. Bittersweet as this has been both an eye-opening, jaw-dropping experience as well as exhausting. We definitely saved the most wondrous experience for last.
We grabbed breakfast in the hotel, and on our way out of town Aunt Anita had to get her souvenir for the trip. So we stopped at one of the western apparel stores and sampled some of their fabulous boot selection. Nothing says Wyoming like a pair of cowgirl boots!
We left Cody and headed west to today's destination. On the way, we got the unexpected surprise of driving through Shoshone National Forest, which of course made for a captivating drive to Yellowstone.
Yellowstone is hard to describe. In fact I had a lot of trouble writing this entry because it's one of those experiences that leaves you speechless that a place like this exists. It is the first piece of land designated as a national park. It encompasses over 2 million acres, the majority of which are within Wyoming, but also stretch into Montana and Idaho. Some animals populous in Yellowstone include the American buffalo (bison), pronghorn, black bear, grizzly bear, moose, bull elk, bighorn sheep, mule deer, wolves, and coyote. It's famous for its geysers, the most well known being Old Faithful.
We entered the park via the eastern entrance and made Old Faithful our first intentional stop. However the main driving circuit that encompasses the majority of Yellowstone, with spokes leading to the entrances/exits, offers many "scenic vistas" or pull-off points, so we may have gotten detoured once or twice on our way to our first destination- Lake Yellowstone being our first waylay point!
For those of you reading this blog and interested in visiting Yellowstone, lodging can be found both within the park and in the surrounding towns. The benefit of staying in the surrounding towns is the diversity in activities and nightlife. Cody, for example, had an awesome main street with great restaurants, fun tourist shops, and of course the rodeo. Conversely, staying in the park means more time spent hiking, nature-seeing, and generally exploring Yellowstone. However, nighttime in Yellowstone is pitch dark, far away from any city lights. The hotels within the park are amazing in their architecture. We stopped at the Old Faithful Inn for lunch as we had an hour and a half before the geyser was set to blow. (NPS rangers/staff monitor the geysers and give an ETA as to the next time the geysers will erupt.) The Old Faithful Inn has the feel of a log cabin and a treehouse combined. Multiple floors, wings, and nooks give the place amaze-like atmosphere. During the day it is the starting point for tours, a tourist attraction in itself as Old Faithful and the geyser hikes all lead from the back of the property, and home to shopping and dining in the park. Between these three traits the hotel is full to bursting with people during the day, and I can only imagine quiet by comparison at night. Aunt Anita stayed here with her family on their pilgrimage to Yellowstone National Park (YNP), and said at night on the mezzanine level the hotel offers board games and snacks. The downfall at night being that there aren't too many opportunities for sightseeing and therefore you better enjoy the company of your vacation party for entertainment.
The restaurant in the inn looks like a solarium as it opens to floor to ceiling windows and french doors on two sides (the other two sides lead to the kitchen and main lobby of the hotel). The lodge feeling continues with the beamed ceiling and spindle tables and chairs. Lunch was delicious, consisting of a salad and sandwich, my only complaint being service was a little slow- granted the dining room was full to bursting with hungry hikers.
We timed lunch almost perfectly as we only waited about ten minutes or so to watch Old Faithful blow. It was an interesting site to see as it had a couple of mini-eruptions prior to the big one, and the crowd that gathered was that of a Disney World parade. it was actually kind of comical given the sheer mass- to watch a bunch of people stare at a hole in the ground, waiting for action, and then as one lift up cameras, phones, and Ipads to film and take pictures. As soon as the burst was over, en mass everyone left- either back into the hotel or off one one of the trails to check out some of the other geysers and pools.
In my research of the attractions at YNP in my National Geographic Guide to National Parks of the United States (one of my souvenirs on this trip to encourage me to continue my exploration) I noted pictures of Morning Glory Pool. It's a two mile loop from Old Faithful to Morning Glory Pool and along the way we were able to check out some other steaming pools and geysers. While an easy walk as it is a paved, level path, I soon came to regret not investing in a bottle of water as it was a hot summer day with minimal shade offered. This hike was also our first that warned of bears in the area. First a bison warning and now a bear warning- what's next to cross our path?!
Morning Glory Pool is beautiful because of the variation in its colors. The colors are created by the temperature in the pool. Due to vandalism, people throwing debris into the pool, the vent and the sides of the spring are embedded with the trash causing reduced water circulation and therefore temperature. Cooler temperatures allow yellow and orange bacteria to thrive. While not a big talking point, it's something I found beautiful and a great photo-op. I only wish that the park added some risers to be able to get a better viewpoint.
The walk back to the Old Faithful Inn took us on a new path with more of these steaming pools and geysers. Unfortunately, it also took us onto an even less shaded path created by a series of boardwalks. The had grown cloudy at some point during our time at Morning Glory, both a blessing and a curse, because we soon became caught in the middle of a rain shower with even less shelter. We continued on the boardwalks a little bit faster this time, but did pause to consider these footprints left in the sand.
Arriving at the inn, we grabbed some water bottles, jumped in the car, and continued on the main circuit of Yellowstone. Aunt Anita insisted that the Upper and Lower Falls are a spectacular site to see, so we made that our next intentional destination. From the falls we also were able to see the Grand Canyon of YNP and the Continental Divide.
After the falls we stopped for some huckleberry ice cream at one of the other national park lodges. Huckleberries are apparently really popular in this area, and as I've come to find out in Spokane and Montana too. Huckleberries taste like blueberries and are sometimes referred to as wild blueberries. I've found them in jams, syrups, sauces, and ice cream.
Our last stop in Yellowstone was Mammoth Hot Springs. Aunt Anita said that when she visited YNP there were elk laying in the hot springs. However, she was surprised to see that there wasn't much water, let alone animals, on our visit.
By the time we left Mammoth Hot Springs, night was descending on us and I was feeling the pressure to get out of the park because I did not want to drive on the curving roads at night. Luckily the hot springs are only five miles from the exit. We stopped for some coffee on the way out, and as a parting gift from Yellowstone I nearly had a heart attack as out of the blackness of night a couple of elk parade across the road right in front of me.
My heart rate back to normal, I continued to drive out of the park and into the night as we set our course for the first big town on our path, and so we stop our story in Butte, Montana with one more chapter in this tale to go.
Today's Destinations:
1. Cody, WY
2. Shoshone National Forest
3. Yellowstone National Park
4. Butte, MT
"Never stop exploring..."
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