Wednesday, August 08: Yellowstone
A late dinner
I got up around 7:30 this morning (having gone to sleep around 11 to 11:30 last night). It is a bit cool this morning (I’m wearing my down sweater and a hat), but I’m not already chilled like I was yesterday. My fingers are a bit stiff as I’m typing this, however.
Amy and Mike are still sleeping. I presume that they slept at least mostly OK, but I don’t know. Since we are pretty much going from morning to bed time, it is hard to find time to keep up with my writing. I figured that this morning would be a good time to do so. It would also allow me to backup my spare flash drive and charge my camera’s batteries.
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Amy and Mike eventually got up, fairly late. We had breakfast at the Lake House, which is the cheaper, more informal restaurant here. On the way down the path to it, we were surprised by an elk standing next to the trail. Unfortunately, neither Amy nor I had our camera with us. It was close enough to the path that we didn’t want to walk past it, but in fairly short order it walked off and we got past.
We found that the breakfast buffet was not a whole lot cheaper than at the main restaurant, and that it wasn’t as nice.
Because of all of this, it was getting close to 11 or 12 by the time we reached the Old Faithful basin. I forget what we did there, maybe just get ice? But then the main event was to push further north through the other geyser basins that we hadn’t been to yet.
The Midway geyser basin had some nice large “lakes”. It also featured a large bridge over the Firehole River, right above the people wading through the water under the sign that said “do not bath in river”.
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Around maybe 1 or 1:30, we were getting hungry, so we had an impromptu lunch at the Gibbon Falls picnic area. The table was in sight of the river but not of the falls themselves. We had crackers, chips, granola bars, etc.
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We got as far north as the Norris Basin. It was one of Amy’s favorites, but it didn’t do too much for me. I preferred the Upper Geyser Basin, aka Old Faithful.
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We started back around 6 or 6:30, hitting two waterfalls on the way. We visited the Gibbon Falls and got pictures. Then we took Firehole Canyon Drive and got pictures of Firehole Falls. By then, it was getting darker, and I think I got some interesting pictures. Of course, there were the required drop-offs of hundreds of feet a few feet away from me with no railing, but that is by now par for the course.
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We drove back to the Lodge (not the Inn) at Old Faithful to hit their food court, We made a quick bathroom break and got to the food court at 9:05, only to find that they closed at 9! When I got there, shortly after Michael, the barricade was lowered to about 3 feet off the ground, but Michael was on the other side! I asked how he got there, and he said he just went under, but that a man said that it was OK. So I did the same. Amy followed soon thereafter.
They were cleaning up, but some food was still available. Still, the options were more limited and I wanted to rush (probably not necessary).
We had dinner, drove back to the campsite, and got to bed late again.