Date: 25 May 2001

Start:

End: Fishing Bridge RV Park, Yellowstone National Park, WY (0 miles)

We got up to a beautiful morning, but cool – 42f, no wind.

We did breakfast in the trailer (becoming known as "the little house in the …(wherever we happen to be)".

We decided, since some roads will only open today (they’ve been closed all winter), that we’ll stick with the south loop and do all the geothermal activity oriented things today.

So we did the hikes at West Thumb Geyser Basin, Fountain Paint Pot Area, the Lower Basin, the Midway Basin, and the Old Faithful area. We saw hot pools of every color including mud and heard fumaroles (the vents that hiss steam from way inside the earth but push up no water). We saw geysers of all sorts – dead, new, regular, irregular, erupt in a single sustained blast, erupt in a series of pulses of water, and so forth.

In between geyser stops, we saw some animals. Dolores spotted two coyotes in a field, loping along, that then ran across the road in front of us. I hope our pictures come out. We were leaving another stop and came to a bridge that had a bison crossing the bridge coming toward us. We let him/her/it have the right of way. It got to our side of the bridge and moved off the road like he knew that’s what he was supposed to do.

By the time we got to Old Faithful, we were running down a little. The day was getting warm and we’d hiked more than usual. So we thought we were very lucky when Old Faithful erupted beautifully as we walked up to watch it. Talk about timing! As we were doing the hike around the OF area, a thunderstorm came in and drove us into the visitors center to wait it out.

When the rain went away, we still had two hours until our dinner reservations at the Old Faithful Inn, that beautiful old log building four stories high, with fireplaces and full-height internal chimneys. So we decided we’d take a ride up the west side of the south loop to look for animals. As we sat in the truck about to turn the key and start up, Dolores asked, "is that a coyote"? Sure enough, a coyote came down through the parking lot looking all over for food, I suppose. He passed about 30 feet in front of us.

On the ride, we found herds of bison, a small herd of elk, and a herd of antelope right next to a herd of bison. The "cute" award went to the baby bison; they were running and bucking and jumping and playing around while their mothers were studiously eating as they strolled along.

We returned for dinner, which was actually quite good. The service was slow and confused, since this is their first big day – Friday of Memorial Day weekend. They’ll get better, and we’ll remember not to do dinner in a seasonal place on Memorial Day weekend where the staff is new each year.

The rains returned during dinner and lasted almost all the way back to our campground, an hour away. There, we settled in and typed these notes. Oh, and I put away the six-pack of "Moose Drool" brown ale I bought at the store; it’s a microbrew distributed from Missoula, Montana but bottled in Portland OR. Despite the name, it has a good taste.

Tomorrow, we’re going to take it easier on ourselves.