Memories are sometimes made when everything does not go perfectly. On Thursday, although the skies were a bit overcast, we drove over to see the Old Faithful geyser. By the time we got to the visitors center, it was raining intermittently. We checked the predicted eruption times (plus or minus 10 minutes) that are posted by the rangers in the Visitors Center. It was not raining at the beginning of this window, so armed with an umbrella we joined the growing crowd on the viewing benches.
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| About 1/4 of the viewing benches at the Old Faithful Geyser |
Shortly after we sat down it started to rain. No, it started to pour! We asked each other: "why, when we have three more weeks at the park, are we sitting in a driving rain waiting for the eruption of a geyser we knew erupts several times each day?" We had no good answer, but we stayed and the eruption eventually happened, after we started to call it "Old Unfaithful".
Unfortunately, the wind was blowing the wrong direction for us to have a good view.
It was a day we will probably never forget. At least neither of us caught a cold!
One thing I can say about Yellowstone National Park is that it is BIG. Even if one stays in a park campground, many of the various features are miles apart.
On Saturday, the weather forecast for the Mammoth Hot Springs area in the northwest corner of the park looked a little better than that for the middle or southern areas. That being a 20% chance of showers vs. 40% chance of rain, so we headed in that direction.
The relatively long drive, which included a five mile stretch of unpaved construction with one-way traffic and delays, was well worth the opportunity to see the remarkable hydrothermal features found there. We took a lot of pictures, and it was very hard to cull them down to our favorite few:
I usually write about the pictures I post, but these speak for themselves.
On the drive back we stopped at this hot pool. There was a pull out and parking lot, but no other thermals around.
It is an excellent example of a breakout hot spring. The water flows down a hill and into the river on the other side of the road.
Considering it doesn't get dark until close to 10 pm, going after dinner might be a good idea.
