Days 1 & 2: Getting there via Billings and the Beartooth Highway
Day 3: visiting the Norris Basin and the Artist Paintpots; hiking the Beaver Ponds Trail
Day 4: Exploring Mammoth Hot Springs; visiting Lamar Valley and hiking to Slough Creek
Day 5: Conquering Mount Washburn; visiting the Mud Volcano; leaving Mammoth for Yellowstone Lake
Day 6: hiking the lower rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone
Day 7: visiting Old Faithful and the other geysers; leaving Yellowstone Lake for the Grand Tetons
Day 8: hiking to Two Ocean Lake; visiting Signal Mountain
Day 9: hiking to Taggart and Bradley Lake; leaving Colter Bay Village for Grand Targhee
Day 10: running the Grand Tetons trail marathon
Day 11: Leaving Grand Targhee for Bozeman, MT
Day 12: returning to Boston
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Okay, this is getting dire. It’s been practically a month after the fact and I thoroughly forget the names of many of the geysers we saw erupting. Except Old Faithful. Ugh — the only good thing I can say about Old Faithful is it erupted roughly 3 minutes after we arrived in the Old Faithful area, meaning we didn’t have to wait up to 90 minutes to witness the most underwhelming tourist moment since our rainy-day visit to Venice Beach.
Where’s the water? Just a billow of steam, like walking past a large apartment complex’s laundry room vent.
Old Faithful eruption
Tourist moment
But maybe showing up right before it erupted was the problem — we missed the anticipation. After going into the visitor’s center and scribbling down the expected eruption times of the other predictable geysers in the park, we followed the boardwalk to visit them.
We were looking at some mud pot when I realized this was going off, and called to Mr. P to go take a picture. Grand Geyser?
Grand Geyser?
Oh, my. I can’t even remember if this is a different geyser or not.
Hot Springs
Hot Springs
I remember this one — Grotto Geyser! Another eruption we surreptitiously stumbled upon.
Grotto Geyser
And this one — Morning Glory Pool.
Morning Glory
And our last — Daisy Geyser! We waited about twenty minutes for this one, the most by far.
Daisy Geyser
By then, it was almost noon and the crowds were picking up. It was time to leave Yellowstone and head to the Grand Tetons. What a send off!
Okay, a picture
