Morning view on Yellowstone Lake, Yellowstone National Park, WY
First of all, average low temp in Yellowstone in September is 32 degrees F. And I'm pretty sure it got close to that at night. It was freezing, so we were both curled up in tight balls by morning.
7am - I woke up 30min late, and decided it was way too cold to shower. Pin got up and we packed up our campsite.
8:20am - Picked up our camera chargers from the ranger station (they were so nice to charge them for us overnight).
9am - West Thumb Basin - This was a beautiful area of hotsprings and geysers right next to the lake so they actually drain into the lake. The water is amazingly clear and are also extremely blue (sometimes rusty colored on the edges) due to the thermophiles that live in them. Unlike yesterday's these didn't smell like eggs.
10:15am - We get to the site of Old Faithful, which is so popular, they made the exit like a real highway exit with an overpass, etc. This geyser is called Old Faithful because the rangers can pretty accurately predict when it will erupt. The next time was 10:44am (+/- 10min). We sat there on benches waiting. At about 10:45am it finally started to shoot out little bursts of water. It got annoying after the 5th time. Finally around 10:55am, it really started erupting with really high jets of water. It was pretty cool, but questionably worth the wait.
11:15am - Midway Geyser Basin - These geysers flowed into a river. It had by far the prettiest and coolest thermal spring aptly called Grand Prismatic Spring. This entire area was almost entirely covered with water flowing from that spring.
11:45am - Firehole Lake Drive - this is a one-way loop taking us back to a thermally heated lake. On the way there was an ultra-clear spring. The Grand something Geyser is also back there. It was a huge geyser, with cascading layers of water. However, the predicted eruption time window was 3 hours wide. There was also this huge white bumpy hill that looked like the classic science-project volcano. I forget what its name was. It might have been Firehole?
12pm - Fountain Paint Pot area - Fountain Paint pot is this wide spring that bubbles with a white mud. It's a little gross looking - there was another call Red Spouter that looked like a mud jacuzzi. The cooler side were 3 geysers next to each other, spewing water and steam across the valley.
12:30pm - On this drive we passed the continental divide about 5 times - pretty cool. We head to Grand Teton National Park (just south of Yellowstone). On the way, there's a ton of construction on the only road there is, so it takes about 1.5 hrs to get 30miles. This put a huge cramp in the schedule.
2:30pm - Grand Teton National Park is so beautiful! Mostly because of the Teton mountain range that is constanting looming in the back of any view. Pin wakes up, we get some food to go from the Colter Cafe (cafe at the Colter Bay area). We plan to walk one of the Hermitage Point trails nearby, but then I realize we're really far behind schedule, and won't really have time. So, we go back and drive down to Jenny Lake Visitor Center.
4pm - We get to Jenny Lake and buy tickets for the shuttle boat that takes you across the lake to the western shore. This cuts out 2miles of hiking (one way) that we didn't ahve time for. Once we're across, we hike up to Hidden Falls (not so hidden with the signage and arrows) and then up to Inspiration Point. On the way, it rains in short spurts. It was really strange, as we saw pockets of rain (like one side of the cafe was pouring rain, the other side was sunny). The plus side of this, is that there were rainbows in view once we got up to Inspiration Point - definitely adding to the inspirational feel of the view. Next, we hightail it down to the dock to avoid missing the last boat back at 6pm.
6pm - I wanted to drive along Antelope Flats Road, which is apparently good for wildlife viewing (I wanted to see a moose), but there was definitely no time with a 5.5 hr drive to Salt Lake City ahead of us. Instead, we just drive through. Having eaten a late lunch, and having little time to spare, we drove through Jackson, WY instead of stopping for dinner there. I definitely would want to go back to Jackson, it was a beautiful ski-town with a million different restaurants and shops.
7:30pm - We get to Idaho, and hands down, this was the emptiest state we've encountered so far.
9pm - We get to Utah.
10:45pm - We stop to get gas and some food (notice we didn't get dinner yet!). There was a Taco Bell, but it was Brigham City, UT on a Sunday - it was closed. We succeeded in finding a McDonald's though.
11:45pm - We get to the hotel finally. It's a beautiful hotel, but we're both beat. VERY long day.
Distance Traveled:463mi
Total Distance: 3404mi
$ Spent: $134.85
Total $: $970.13
