Day 24

We got up after a cold night's sleep (we managed to stay nice and warm, though). We got some complimentary cappucino from the RV office, showered, and set about our day: touring the park.

We got boxed lunches from last night's cafe, grabbed some breakfast to go from the local bakery, and set off to the park. Our day was definitely foreshadowed by the line-ups at the gate, and the fact that people were trying to cut into the express line we were in. After that little adventure, we got to drive maybe another 4 miles down the road before we hit the next roadblock. We probably lost a half hour slowly making our way through traffic, so everybody could stop and see... a bird. It was an eagle, which is pretty special to the American people, I guess. I can drive 10 miles from my place to see one though, so it wasn't really a big deal for us. As a side note, it wasn't even a bald eagle, we think that it was a golden eagle or something.

The next roadblock... we weren't even sure what caused it. However, we were soon on the Grand Loop, a big ring road that takes you through all the sights in the park. We made our first stop at the Lower Geyser Basin, where we saw some hot spring pools, mud pots, and a couple small geysers. Bacteria grows in the pools, creating huge blooms of slime and goo that are all sorts of colours, but tend toward yellow and red. We stopped again at the Biscuit Geyser Basin, and saw more of the same, but less spectacular. But we did see a guy all dressed in hunting gear, which seemed pretty new, especially since he still had the stickers on the back of the legs of his jeans.

Our next stop was Old Faithful, the most famous geyser in the world. We arrived there at about 1 PM, found a parking spot, and made our way to the viewing area. We then found out that the next eruption would be around 2:20. Brett decided to camp it out on the benches outside with a good spot, rather than wander around. After several false starts around 2:20, it finally erupted at around 2:25. Pretty cool. We got it on video on our camera, as well as some pics of the eruption.

Our next stop was the West Thumb Geyser Basin. Nothing too spectacular here. Just a couple small geysers, steam vents and some hot springs. It is situated on Yellowstone Lake, which is quite a pretty lake.

We stopped at Sulphur Cauldron. It turned out to be basically really stinky geysers that were not even that nice to look at. I guess we should have known from the name. More people were on the road taking pictures of the deer that were up on the bank. Once again, we were not all that excited. However, we did see a woman wearing a facecloth on her head. That was quite the sight.

Back in the truck. We drove for a bit, pulled over at a picnic site and had our lunch at about 3 PM. It was time to see some waterfalls. Next stop was Tower Falls, way in the northeast corner of the park. On our way, we hit another traffic jam. This time it was 2 bison beside the road. Getting past that block we managed to make it about another mile down the raod and then again there was a traffic stop. The same cars that had just stopped for 2 bison were now stopping for 1. By this point we were getting frustrated. This bison decided that he too had had enough and crossed the road and left. Finally we made it to the falls. We went down this path, that was basically leading nowhere fast, so back up the steep hill we went. Once again, back in the truck.

We decided that we had enough of the park and it was time to go back to the campsite. Unfortunately, we hit yet another roadblock heading sout towards the West Yellowhead turnoff, and it was a gooder. Some people had spotted a grizzly bear in some bush just to the right, and pretty soon, everybody just abandoned their cars right on the road to go and see it. People were walking pretty close to where the bear was. It wasn't until a park ranger showed up that some semblance of order was restored. He ordered everybody back to their vehicles, and a few people actually listened. It was very frustrating to be stuck behind 4 unoccupied vehicles right on the road itselfvand to see somewhat clear roadway in front. Eventually, we got through as people pulled ahead and off to the shoulder. The funny thing was that we never saw the thing ourselves, even though we sat there for about 10 minutes. Maybe it was someone's idea of a joke. Who knows.

Two elk held up traffic on our way back into town. A real exercise in controlling your emotions on the road, and Brett almost lost control a few times (good thing Rhonda was there). We weren't back in town until around 8:15 PM. We did some souvenir shopping, and grabbed a late meal to go from McDonald's.

I would say we only put about 200 km's on the truck today, but we spent close to 5 hours in the vehicle. But, we're all still in the truck.