Yellowstone National Park
August 9, Wednesday: Grand Teton, WY to Yellowstone
We left Grand Teton for Yellowstone, driving one hour north to our campground in the center of Yellowstone at Fishing Bridge. We got set up, had lunch, and stopped at the Fishing Bridge visitor center and store before driving south to see the old Lake Inn. It is a monstrous place painted a yucky yellow and the drive up to the back of the building is very unimpressive. It’s the oldest hotel in the park and the building is rather plain. Once inside, we began to understand why it is so famous - the front of the lodge faces the lake and the hotel lobby has large old-fashioned windows overlooking the lake. We checked out the nearby Lake Lodge which is more rustic with a nice front porch with rocking chairs and views of the lake.
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We returned to the RV for dinner and then hiked down by Pelican Creek where we saw a river otter swimming upstream. We drove just north of our campground to the Mud Volcano area with great mud pits and roaring steam vents with horrendous sulphur smells.
August 10, Thursday: Yellowstone, WY
Yellowstone is a massive park with four major areas. We thought we’d start with the most famous area – Old Faithful.
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On the way, we stopped to explore a dramatic waterfall called the Kepler Cascade and stopped at an area called West Thumb. Instead of geysers, West Thumb has steam vents and spectacularly colored streams and pools. The Yellowstone River is nearby and some of the steam vents look like mini volcanoes spewing steam right in the middle of the river. The area has beautiful turquoise blue pools and incredibly colored rusty orange streams..jpg?timestamp=1244652128062)
The Old Faithful area is a bit complex to get around with one-way streets and heavy traffic. We ended up in an employee-only parking lot and stopped at a cafeteria for lunch. It took us a while to figure out how to get out of the parking lot and over to the parking area for Old Faithful, but we finally managed to park close to the Old Faithful Inn. 
Outside the Inn is a sitting/waiting area for Old Faithful which goes off about every 90 minutes. While waiting for Old Faithful, we saw a geyser spouting in the distance – Lion, we were told later. Old Faithful was worth the wait – we took lots of pictures.
We walked the short geyser circular route where another geyser called Beehive let go – by the time we got over to where we could take pictures, it fizzled out. 
After walking around the geyser area, we went inside the Old Faithful Lodge to look around. We were disappointed to find it small and unimpressive. 
We then went into the Old Faithful Inn, and we were wowed. The Inn is dramatic with a rustic lobby, more than three stories high, with gnarled wooden balconies, open beams, a massive fireplace and an incredible clock that is at least two stories tall. After spending time walking around the Inn, we went back out to watch Old Faithful again for a front row seat where we could get a good video of the whole thing.
August 11, Friday: Yellowstone, WY
We headed north from our campground to the Canyon area, passing by an open field. Bison were everywhere in the field, with the males snorting and bellowing at each other and fighting over the females. We got some great videos of two bison charging each other. We stayed in our car by the side of the road for more than ½ hour enjoying the show. When we finally started driving north again, a few miles further up the road, cars were pulled over, so we stopped to see what was going on. A grizzly bear was on the side of the road – our first grizzly bear sighting outside Alaska. 
The Canyon area is beautiful with a rushing river at the bottom and yellowish canyon walls towering on the sides. At the Canyon, we did a long hilly walk along the south rim with great views of the canyon and two spectacular water falls - the Upper and Lower Falls. 
A few miles south of the Canyon, we stopped to have lunch along Otter Creek – no otters in site, but lots of ravens. We decided to bypass Canyon Village (shops, snack bar, etc.) and the North Rim to go northern-most area in the park called Tower-Roosevelt. We took a short walk out to the Tower Falls, but you couldn’t see the bottom of the falls and the trail to the base of the falls is closed due to a landslide.
We decided to drive up to Cooke City just outside the northeast entrance to Yellowstone Park where the very scenic Beartooth Highway begins. The Lamar Valley in northeastern Yellowstone, known for its animal sightings, was on the way. The Valley was pretty with the meandering river and impressive mountains all around, but the only animals we saw were humans fishing in all the streams we passed.
August 12: Yellowstone, WY
Today we are staying closer to our campground as yesterday was a long drive. In the Lake area, just to our south, we hiked a short trail to a Natural Bridge. From the ground, it looked more like an arch, but there is a geologic difference a natural bridge is formed. We put the kayak in on a medium-sized lake called Lewis Lake. We paddled around exploring the eastern shore of the lake for an hour or so, but the winds came up and the water started getting rough, so we had to cut our kayaking short.
We decided to go back to the Canyon area and explore the North Rim. On our way, we stopped at the Bison field again and saw them swimming in the river. They are so clunky-looking, I was surprised they could swim! The North Rim was very pretty with good views of the Upper and Lower Falls. There was a walk down to the river, but it involved hundreds of steps, and we were just too tired to make the attempt. Maybe another day.
For dinner, we were told that the best pizza in the park was near the southern entrance. We had originally planned going there for dinner, but we were too tired to drive that far, so stopped at Lake Lodge and had a great, inexpensive dinner in their cafeteria. On the way home in the dark, we almost hit two bison just walking down the road.
August 13: Yellowstone, WY
We drove to the Norris Geyser Basin and Madison areas in the western part of the park and to the town of West Yellowstone just outside the park that is the gateway to the western part of Yellowstone National Park. 
On the way to West Yellowstone, we did a short one mile roundtrip walk out to the Artists Paint Pots with springs of all different colors surrounded by tall pine trees.
West Yellowstone is larger than we expected with quite a few stores and fast food restaurants. We stopped to see the IMAX movie “Yellowstone,” but for the first time, we were disappointed in a national park IMAX movie.
The Norris geyser basin is home to the tallest geyser and Porcelain Basin – the hottest area in the park with steaming vents and high-temperature streams. We walked the five miles or so around the Back Basin and Porcelain Basin – incredible colors, steam and spouting small geysers – it truly feels like a different planet.
We arrived back at the campground a bit late, but early enough to have happy hour with Bob and Carol Bailey from South Carolina who ended up parked right behind us!
August 14, Monday: Yellowstone, WY
Today we returned to the Old Faithful area to try and see some of the other geysers. We first went to the visitor’s center to get the timing of the predictable geysers. The schedules for the predictable geysers often have large windows – many are predictable only within an hour or two. We had already missed a few that had gone off, but there were a few more that were scheduled to spout, so we hurried and walked miles and then waited for the geyser, then hurried and walked and waited some more. We realized that it would have been better to stay at one of the lodges and have bikes to get around to the different geysers.
Before leaving the area to return to the campground, we drove a little north to Black Sand Basin and Biscuit Basin – unusual colors and bubbling springs.
August 15, Tuesday: Yellowstone, WY
Today was our last full day in Yellowstone. We drove up to the Mammoth Hot Springs area in the northwestern part of the park. Mammoth Hot Springs is a real town and is much larger than other areas in Yellowstone because it is park headquarters. We stopped at the Lodge in order to see the famous wooden map of the United States in the Map Room. The map is made of all different types of woods and was beautiful. In addition to the old Lodge, there were lots of interesting buildings from the Fort Yellowstone days, but we didn’t have time to explore them.
The Hot Springs area is made up of upper and lower terraces. The upper terrace is a short drive, while the lower terrace is all walking. We first drove around the upper terrace loop that had a fantastic orange monolith seeping with water – fabulous. The huge lower terraces would have been more beautiful if there had been water, but in August, I guess it’s typically dry.
We had dinner reservations at the Old Faithful Inn at 5pm, so we didn’t have time to stop at the middle and upper basins that are north of Old Faithful. Dinner was okay – food was very expensive, but not very good. The dining room offers no views at all and there was construction right outside the window.
After supper, we had an after dinner drink on the 3rd floor balcony of the Inn’s lobby while a pianist played classical music. Just outside on a deck, we watched Old Faithful erupt two more times. Watching Old Faithful seemed the appropriate thing to do on our last evening in Yellowstone. It was pouring rain when we left and it spritzed on and off all the way back.
