The Relaxing 2014 Vacation: Yellowstone

Mount Lassen 2008

Jackson Hole 2014

*Groan!*  The kabin here at the KOA was nice in that it gave us a solid roof over our heads to keep us from getting wet (a possibility if we had been in our tent), but the mattresses on the beds were . . . more firm than comfortable.  Of all of us, Ben was affected the most by this situation.  In his condition, a firm bed is not his friend.  Still, we seem to have worked out most of the kinks in our bodies and are in good spirits as we prepare for a breakfast of either chocolate or strawberry milk, chocolate covered mini-donuts and fruit snacks (breakfast of champions!).  Also, before we leave, Jennifer, Ben and Isaac want to recreate (after a fashion) a picture I took of them back in 2008 during our very first stay at a KOA when we visited Mount Lassen in Northern California.  This kabin here at Jackson Hole has a chair swing that is very similar to the one on the porch of the kabin at Mount Lassen..  Maybe I'll contrast the two pictures when I type out this post; I think it would be fun.  Anyway, my reasoning for staying at this KOA was to give us time to get into Yellowstone park in plenty of time to see the sights and return to Cokeville at a descent hour.  We'll see how well my theory works.

Old Faithful

It's now the next day.  I'm sitting in the living room of Mom and Dad's house and have a moment to finish writing what I started yesterday.  One of the things I always seem to forget (but am quickly reminded) about driving into Yellowstone is the time factor.  It takes longer to actually reach the park than one would predict because of 1) the reduced speed limit, and 2) the cars one ends up driving behind.  RVs are the worst of the second scenario because they are slower and the drivers won't move into the passing turnouts until there are 7 to 10 cars piled up behind them.  "Gawker" cars are almost as bad.  These are filled with the people who are too busy looking at everything around them to remember to drive.  They remind me of the dogs in the Pixar movie Up who are constantly distracted by the non-existent "Squirrel!"  A shadow in the trees suddenly becomes a "Bear!" or a "Deer!" or a "Moose!" and they suddenly slow down long enough to confirm they're seeing . . . nothing.  When they finally do see something (or think the shadow really is an animal), they pull off the road to take pictures which causes great rejoicing in my vehicle.  Over the years, I've had this interesting (to me, anyway) phenomena occur in Yellowstone where I'm consistently stuck behind someone with a Texas license plate.  I'm not sure if I've been surrounded by some weird cosmic force that attracts Texans to me, but this year there may have been a shift in the magnetic pull.  Instead of Texas, cars with Colorado plates (either initially parked at the side of the road or making turns onto the main road at junctions) would pull in front of me at the last second and proceed to drive 10 miles slower than the speed limit, apparently on the lookout for Bigfoot or something equally photo worthy.

Grand Geyser

Nevertheless, we arrived at Old Faithful about 20 minutes before noon and learned it was scheduled to erupt 5 minutes after noon.  I believe this was the earliest we'd ever arrived at the Upper Geyser Basin and I don't know if it was because of the earlier hour or just fortuitous timing, but we were treated to more geysers than usual.  The storm from the night before caused the weather to be cold and windy.  Somehow, I got a bit turned around as we drove into the parking lots and we ended up initially parking several hundred yards from the main lodge.  When we finally reached the Old Faithful viewing area, I noticed people looking toward the northwest.  When we looked in the same direction, we saw a geyser erupting in the distance.  We found out later the geyser was Grand Geyser.  Not long after the Grand Geyser completed its spray, Old Faithful lived up to its name and started close to on time, shooting water high into the air.  After watching nature's display, we walked to Castle Geyser to watch it shoot spouts of water and gouts of steam, one which enveloped us, into the air.  As we continued along the boardwalk, we eventually made a stop at Grand Geyser.  While my family rested on one of the benches, I walked over to the sign showing when it would erupt.  The times listed coincided with the geyser we saw erupted when we approached Old Faithful--this is how I made the connection.  Later, as we walked along the boardwalk, we saw another geyser erupting.  We were close enough that we could watch it from where we stood.  When we approached it a few minutes later, we found it was the Beehive Geyser we had seen.  By this time, Ben was getting tired, so we made our way toward the lodge.  As we approached the area where the trail dropped toward the bridge crossing Firehole River, we saw Old Faithful erupt again!  I can't recall if we've seen this before, but it gave us a different perspective of the geyser.

Beehive Geyser

Old Faithful a Second Time

After leaving the Old Faithful area, we decided to drive along the Firehole Lake Drive and view the sights from the car to give Ben a chance to recover.  Not long after that, we reached the Fountain Paint Pot area.  Ben felt good enough to walk again, so we decided to hike up the incline to the paint pots.  At first, we didn't plan on going any farther.  Luckily, Ben felt good enough to continue.  When we arrived at the overlook area for several geysers, we were treated to the sight of three geysers erupting at once: Fountain, Spasm, and Jet.  It was difficult to get Jet in the picture from this vantage point and its spray wasn't as much as the other two, but this was a sight none of us had seen!  Jennifer started talking to another family standing nearby.  The father told her that two "professional" (I guess) geyser watchers had told him that these three erupt in sequence every 5 or 6 hours.  I don't dispute his claim, but I guess I've never walked along this particular boardwalk when this phenomena has occurred.  The Spasm Geyser always seems to be shooting out water in small to medium fits, but the amount of water coming from Fountain was quite amazing.

Fountain Geyser

At first, Ben wasn't sure if he wanted to walk down the stairs from the overlook to get closer to the geysers.  After several minutes, however, Ben indicated he wanted a closer look.  We descended the stairs and approached Fountain.  From this vantage point, we could see Jet better.  The water playing from this small geyser wasn't much, but since I had never seen it erupt before, any amount was fun.  Also, I noticed the lady and the man who the family at the overlook had said were the professional geyser watchers.  She was closer to us.  I didn't talk to her, but saw several people having a conversation with her.  A few minutes later, Fountain went quiet.  It was quite a contrast.  For about ten minutes we had watched water explode out at heights of around 10 to 15 feet.  When the eruption stopped, the pool reverted back to what we had seen on all our previous visits; a blue pool of very hot water with wisps of steam curling up from the edges.  Thankfully, the boardwalk loops around back to the main trail and we didn't have to return to the staircase.  By this time, Ben needed extra assistance.  I sidled up alongside him as I've done at other times and we walked in lock-step back toward the car.  Moments after we reconnected with the main walkway, I felt a touch on my arm.  Glancing to my left, I found the lady geyser watcher at my side. "I wanted to tell you," she said, "that this is one of the most touching scenes I've seen in all my years coming to this boardwalk."  I was stunned, but honored by her words.  When I relayed our conversation to Jennifer after Ben and Isaac had gotten into the car, I couldn't stop from tearing up.

Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

Our final area to visit was the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and the upper and lower falls.  Before visiting Niagara Falls last year, Ben and Isaac thought these waterfalls were amazing--now, as Ben says, they're just descent.  Still, when we drove to Artist's Point and viewed the lower falls framed by the beautiful yellow rock on both sides of the canyon walls, we were all impressed by the sight.  Obviously, this is where the park gets its name.  The Grand Canyon has this canyon beat as far as depth and size, but what sets this canyon apart is the yellow rock and power of the falls as the water cascades down the cliff sides.  As we left the falls and started on our way back to Cokeville, we encountered a herd of buffalo.  After all our visits to Yellowstone, buffalo have become a familiar sight and don't cause us to want to pull off the road to look at them.  The only time we do stop is when they're walking across the road.  In this case, however, the buffalo were close to the road and some of the people who had pulled off the road were getting out of their cars and approaching them to take closer pictures.  This is a practice the park brochures warn against because of the unpredictability of these animals and the chance that they might charge anyone coming close to them.  In this case, we slowed down because of the people crossing the road and the off chance we might see the one particular knucklehead, edging in very close to the lead buffalo with his expensive camera, get head-butted.  No such luck; although the two in the foreground are giving the guy a good long look.

As I mentioned at the beginning, my second hope in getting into the park earlier than we had before was to return back to Mom and Dad's house at a decent hour.  This also worked out for us.  We made a stop at a Wendy's in Jackson for dinner to go and drove the Jackson to Alpine portion of the trip with enough daylight for me to pick out two does eating near the side of the road.  I saw one other deer a few miles outside of Smoot.  Other than that, our return trip was as uneventful as our two days were eventful (still no stars, however).