Sunday, November 7, 2010

The Oregon Trail - Day 21

After a great night's sleep in the cabin, not the car, we stopped for gas just to make sure we did not get stranded inside Yellowstone.  Lesson learned last night.  While we were in the gas station we met a couple who had stayed in the same set of cabins we did and they were from Oregon near Kit and Mike.  We enjoyed sharing stories with them and talking about how much fun we had in Oregon.  It was a cold 21 degrees at 8:30 a.m. and not a cloud in the sky. 

There was a big herd of buffalo crossing the road down in the geyser fields and everyone stopped and took the opportunity to make pictures.  Some of those crazy people got out of their cars and set up tripods with cameras.  I felt a lot safer standing up through the sun roof.  It was fun to watch how slowly those big boys were moving and would just stand in the middle of the road; then all of a sudden they would take off just running across the pasture with their heels kicking up the dust. 




At one of the geyser pools there was a couple from Norway, or somewhere like that, who had camped out the night before and run out of propane.  I looked into the pool and they were boiling 4 eggs for breakfast.  Illegal, I am sure.  I had seen the man sneaking over the railing when we drove up.  Sure hope they didn't burn their little tootsies off fixing breakfast.



I just had to sneak this picture.

About noon we made it to the big lodge and had a burger at the Geyser Grill.  Of course we had to buy a few souvenirs.  We look like a homeless couple living out of our vehicle.  One more sack of trinkets and I'll have to run along side the car the rest of the way home. 

Old Faithful is not too far from the lodge across a huge parking area.  She blows about every 40-126 minutes.  We weren't sure how long it had been since it blew, so we just took a seat and soaked up the nice sun on our backs, watched the crowd gathering with us and watched the other lesser geyser that was spewing from time to time in the background.  Old Faithful constantly sent up steam in varying density and burped some water from time to time.  Just teasing us and keeping us on our toes with cameras cocked and ready to go.  Finally about an hour and a half after we sat down, it blew.  The water shot over 100 feet high and lasted maybe three to five minutes.  It was well worth the wait.  If you look really closely, you can see the rainbow in the first picture just above the tree line.  Pictures just don't capture rainbows very well, but it was really pretty.






The West Thumb of Yellowstone Lake was just beautiful and so blue. 

We left Yellowstone behind and headed toward the rest of Wyoming.  It looked so different even just outside of the Park and it seemed we were at a lower elevation.  Horses were everywhere and obviously big business in Wyoming.  There was much more fall color along the roadside with all the aspens and cottonwood trees.  I guess it was a fair trade off - beautiful fall trees, but no wild flowers along the road like there had been in all the other states.
 
We got a room for the night in Cody, Wyoming at the Big Bear Motel.  Way too cold to even think about camping and we have gotten less committed to the idea as each day has passed.    




Marmalade's Side of the Story

Woohoo!!!  Everybody let out a yell when Old Faithful blew up.  It was great! 

We saw this really strange tree that someone had made out of antlers and skulls in their front yard.  Yuk.  Nonnie thought it was cool, but I thought it was creepy.  Baker, what do you think?



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