Geysers and Bison and Bears! Oh My!

Geysers and Bison and Bears!  Oh My!

We left for Yellowstone at 8:30 this morning.   Beth’s friends left too. They headed out before us and went a different path because they needed to get to Salt Lake City by Saturday.

We had map in hand and headed toward the West Entrance of Yellowstone.   We followed the map for a bit and got to Madison.  Here is where we saw the Lower Geyser Basin and the Biscuit Basin.  Upper Geyser and West Thumb.  We saw every available geyser at each site.  The parking lots were full of visitors, and the boardwalks made the trekking around each stop easy.   

After our first geyser site we saw lots of cars pulled over.   We did the same and found a herd of lazy bison, resting while their calves were grazing.   We didn’t get close, but just as we pulled back out to the road, I saw two women next to some trees, and right behind the trees, I noticed a very large mound that turned out to be an enormous bison!  We sure hope that the women realized it before the bison spotted them!

We headed for Rainbow Geyser because the woman at the visitor center told us not to miss it.  She said we would get a better vantage point if we went two miles beyond the site to the overlook point.   We parked and tried to find it but after a mile and a half walk down a dirt path we decided that we weren’t going the right way.  Oh well we got some exercise.

Later on we did find the right place purely by accident, but decided to save that venture for another day because we had no water, we were tired and getting hungry.

We headed for Old Faithful.   Took a lunch break and waited.  The geyser stood by its name and erupts every 90 minutes.  We watched as it started with a few bursts, and seconds later higher ones and still higher…  130 ft. in all!  After two minutes the whole show was done!

Next, we went to the Visitor Center General Store for a few mementos and finished the day by heading south to West Thumb.  There were lots of colorful geyser pools and the bluest lake, Yellowstone Lake.

Finally we were done for the day and headed out of the park toward Big Sky!  We saw another group of cars pulled over.  This time it was a grizzly foraging for food.  Quite a sight!   

We arrived at our Big Sky abode close to 9:30.  We downloaded our amazing pics and just thought about how lucky we both are!

Can’t wait for tomorrow…. think we’re going to venture a little earlier and head for the Canyon Village.