Day 6: Yellowstoned- From Zero to Hero

 Mile: 1300

We wake up bright and early to hit the road. We started with our hotel's continental breakfast. The dining area was playing some type of jungle/ Native American tribe music. It made me feel like we were going on safari rather than the friendly park Yogi Bear inhabited.

Armed with our Yellowstone guide, we left Cody WY at 7am. We drive through the beautiful and scenic Buffalo Bill Park on our way to the East entrance at Yellowstone.

View of Lake in Buffalo Bill Park

Strange House Right Outside of Yellowstone

James was so excited, he wore this silly grin the whole drive to Yellowstone. Ironically, I wore the same grin, but it was more because I was nervous about what type of wildlife we would encounter this time.

Mile 1345: Entering Yellowstone

The park ranger handed us this on the way in...I considered doing a quick check of James' life insurance policy to make sure it included 'bear mauling'.

The picture on this is priceless.


We checked out the fishing bridge as our first stop (people used to fish off of the bridge in the 70's, but it is no longer permitted). 

View from fishing bridge. It was fine. Nothing too exciting.

There was some nice scenery along the way.

Nice scenery... not as good as Bighorn


At this point, we were feeling like Yellowstone was a little lackluster compared to the other parks we had been  to.  I wasn't really understanding the hype. This place was teaming with tourists... the Badlands and Bighorn were practically empty. I didn't get it. We kept going in hopes of discovering the secrets of Yellowstone. And then...

Holy Crap! Buffalo were charging towards us. Something from the other direction must have scared them. The video below is rated PG13 for bad language

After making it out of the charging buffalo herd alive, our second stop was the falls. They were supposed to be amazing.  It  was nice.

A closer look at the falls.

The Falls from the Scenic Overlook

James and I hiked down for a closer look at the falls. Another self-portrait

Still not connecting with Yellowstone as much as we had with the other parks, we start to head to the lower loop to  have lunch and see Old Faithful. On the way, we were able to catch some of the thermal activity. That was really cool. This video is rated G

Mile 1449: Old Faithful

Finally we hit Old Faithful. It erupts every 80-90 minutes; hence the name. It was pretty spectacular and definitely worth fighting the crowd. There is a 20 minute window on when they expect it to erupt. 

James watching in anticipation

James and I take another picture of ourselves. in front of Old Faithful before  it erupts... getting sunburn. 

Old Faithful just getting started

Old Faithful at full blast

Settling down. The geyser went off for about 4 minutes. It was amazing.

We were able to get a peek of this elk having a snack on the side of the road

Now we are starting to understand Yellowstone. The highlight is definitely the thermal activity. We stopped at various geysers on the rest of the lower loop. I've never seen anything like it.

If you look closely you can see the steam coming off of the pool. It is boiling water. 

This one was called Artists Pot. 

The steam from this one kept fogging up our sunglasses

This one is the Grand Prismatic. The orange/ red color is bacteria. The colors were  beautiful

It was getting late and we were exhausted. It was time to head out of the park and into civilization. Tomorrow: Big Sky, MT