Day 3, Monday

Day 3 had proved to be the most testing day. Lack of quality sleep and a long day to boot has tested us.

Before leaving our cabin I made sure to put our dinner in the crock pot. We had brought up some stew meat that was frozen and by now has defrosted in our cooler/refrigerator. Sean the previous day was looking around our room and found a sign on our door that says “no cooking with a possible fine.” That scared us but made us wonder if a crock pot was a cooking mechanism. We took the chance and hung the “do not disturb” sign on the door in hopes that no maids would come to tidy up.

Off we go…our first stop was a GIANT hot springs area that we had missed the day prior. Boy am I glad that we had stopped. It was probably the coolest hot springs were had seen all day. Just acres and cliffs full of them, with crazy rock formations, and bright brilliant colors. This was the best photography location by far for the day.

Oh and on a side note…this park is a photographers DREAM. If I only had a $3000 telephoto lens to capture some of the animals like I was sitting next to them this would be perfect. (highly recommend renting an expensive telephoto if you can afford one and you come here).

Our mission was to hit Old Faithful today. During our trip south, we saw many hot spring and I had a few stops of locations in particular that I wanted to check out. Well…since it is EARLY spring here in Yellowstone, we have soon come to the realization that some of these locations are not going to be open just yet. I have come to terms with that in compromise of absolutely no traffic and crowds. It’s been WONDERFUL. I highly recommend coming in an off peak season. Yes some of the “off the beaten path” things are not open yet, and hiking is at a very minimum as most trails are snowed over or “closed for bear hibernation/eating” but you will get to see all the main attractions.

So we finally hit Old Faithful. We wander up to the visitors center to find out what time the next eruption is I forgot to call and find out. To our surprise, we only had to wait about 20 minutes.

Old Faithful kind of reminds me of a show at an amusement park. It attracts everyone. They have it set up like an arena, with rows and rows of benches doing a ½ moon around it. So during our wait a lovely lil rain storm shows up. Yup that is right, sweatshirt and jeans and here we are soaking in the rain. Thank goodness it doesn’t last long.

So at approx 2:09pm (plus or minus 10 minutes) was our eruption time. Just a few minutes after 2:09pm, she starts to bubble then she spewed! After a few short moments her eruption dies down to about half her size then quietly goes back into her hole. Once was all said and done, Sean and I both looked at each other and decided that it wasn’t all that it was hyped up to be. But then again we were sitting 100 yards away for safety.

After that, I wanted to visit the Old Faithful Inn. It was built in 1904 (going off of memory) and has a huge fireplace (8 to be exact) all made out of stone, and the building was built with logs. The map of this area was not very friendly, we missed the turn out and decided to travel south on the main road and see if we saw anything else and then we would come back. Nope, the south end of the park is just snow snow and more snow. Walls of snow. This part of the park was boring! So we made a quick turn around about 10 minutes in and headed back to find that Inn.

We finally arrived. I’m glad we stopped it was pretty cool and Sean finally came around to the idea after seeing it. He wasn’t all to fond of stopping at first. He just thought it was going to be just some “hotel”. The hotel itself was very dark, but that was what it was like for that time period. We then headed up to the second floor where in our book we were advised that this level there was an outdoor deck where you could get drinks and watch old faithful again. By about this time, we had wasted another 90 minutes and in just a few moments it was going to erupt again. Yup, the second time was much better and larger. Still not oober shocked but glad that we saw it again.

Oh yeah…animals. Lets see, crowds have been our friends on the highway. When you see a crowd, you know it’s something good and to PULL OVER. Our first crowd was bear #1. He was a grizzly. He was doing some grazing, but was making the rangers mad as I guess he was crossing the highway several times a day for a few weeks now. They wish he would just sit still but nope, he just wants to show off.

Second animal stopping was grizzly #2 on our way back from old faithful. He had captured a large bird and was having some dinner. He then thought that was boring and went back to grazing, and walking toward the highway. At that point the ranger said for all of us to get back in our cars. I’m convinced it’s the same bear from the AM. He was a teaser. 

As we arrived home, we didn’t know if out crock pot to be gone, or a fine slapped on our bills. We lucked out and our crock pot was still in our room, plugged in and dinner was ready.

PS – dinner was yummy!

After dinner we headed off for a little historical walk in mammoth springs and then turned in early for a movie “bolt” on the laptop and early bed it was. We were both spent from our few days.