Tag Archives: Old Faithful

Repetition is Good

This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls. – John Muir What I learned, Day 10: FullSizeRender 140 We miss Lifepoint!  It was great to wake up this morning and stream in the service.  What a great message for my boys to hear! IMG_0412 My wife shouldn’t accidentally send me pictures if she doesn’t want them publicly disclosed.  That’s actually something she is learning.  I already knew that. IMG_0401 IMG_0403 IMG_0407 Some things bear repeating.  Boys wanted to fish again.  So far that is the thing they say is their favorite.  Still didn’t catch anything.  And untangled two gnarly knots. FullSizeRender 137 FullSizeRender 139 FullSizeRender 138 IMG_5247 There are colors that exist that are too intense to describe.  None of these pictures have filters.  The bottom pictures is the Grand Prismatic Spring.  What amazes me is this actually exists on planet earth.  What is even more amazing is that you see it at every turn. We took a short drive on a side road and saw several more springs and geysers.  All with the same blue hue. FullSizeRender 135 IMG_5260 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZNTAUEoh2A Don’t sit downwind.  The screams you hear in the video are everyone getting wet.  We wanted to see Old Faithful one last time.  She was predicted at 2:18 and arrived right on time.  Lasted about 4 mins 10 sec.  In the background you can see Old Faithful Inn.  Would love to stay their one night in the future.  BEAUTIFUL building! Another thing I learned, or maybe it is something everyone else will learn when they read this, is that I can alter the schedule and go off the spreadsheet.  We are pulling out a day early tomorrow to hit one day in the Tetons.  We were looking at our route to Yosemite and it added too much time to the driving.  Instead we’ll just make a day of it! Route/Itinerary: Yosemite National Park.  West Entrance, Madison, Old Faithful

  • Fishing the Madison River
  • Midway Geyser Basin
  • Firehole Lake Drive
  • Old Faithful

Yellowstone Day 1

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. – John Muir

What I learned, Day 7:

Sometimes you just need to rest.  We’ve been going hard since leaving Fredericksburg on June 5.  And Thursday morning we set no alarms, made no plans, and just took it easy.  I was able to piddle around the camper and fix some things the rough roads had knocked loose.  Found a great hardware store that was super helpful in getting me what I needed.  The boys road their bikes.  Played Mario Kart.  We cleaned a little.  It felt very much like a Saturday.

West Yellowstone is not a thriving metropolis.  The grocery store is really non-existent.  Imagine Armageddon has taken place and you walk into a grocery store to get your bare necessities only to find it has been wiped clean.  No bread.  $10 chicken.  $5 milk.  It was no bueno.

FullSizeRender 110It is good to have family!  When we began planning this trip, we asked my in-laws and my parents if they wanted to join us at any part of the trip.  My mom and stepdad chose Yellowstone.  After bailing us out at the supermarket where they were staying, they rolled in around 1PM and we took off to Yellowstone.

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Maps are a poor representation of what you are about to experience.  Yellowstone is HUGE.  I got a glimpse of this driving in on Wednesday.  It is very big.  Very very very big.  Its hard to comprehend its size when you see a little square box up in the upper left hand corner of Wyoming.  And within that little square box you have the wildest of geological changes.  One moment your in a canyon with a river, then a valley with grass as far as you can see and buffalo grazing.  Then you are up into a pine forest.  Then you have steam all around you.  Such wild diversity.

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Yes, Old Faithful is faithful – and very cool.  You worry that the blind are leading the blind.  You see a crowd gathered (very large crowd) around the circle of Old Faithful.  Maybe they are mistaken.  Maybe no one has actually looked to see when the next eruption will be.  Because you wait, and wait, and wait.  You have some teasers of abundant steam.  Then nothing.  Finally, when the steady plume of steam has lulled you to boredom – BOOM!  Old Faithful proves its worthiness of a must see.  I hate I can’t figure out how to upload video onto a WordPress site.

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In only half a day you can see things that will amaze you.  Mud pots.  Crystal blue springs. Geysers.  At one point, we were looking one direction at a geyser.  Then Wyatt noticed something making a bunch of racket behind us and we got to see Jet Geyser show off for us.

The sun, for some reason, is different here.  71 degrees doesn’t feel like 71 unless you are in the shade or have a breeze.  Its dry.  No humidity.  But the sun is intense.  Many times I feel its in the 80s.  Not sure why.  Maybe we’re closer to the sun.

Route/Itinerary: Yosemite National Park.  West Entrance to Old Faithful.

  • Fountain Paint Pot
  • Firehole Canyon Drive
  • Old Faithful