Another WOW Day at Yellowstone.

Every time we have come home from a trip to Yellowstone - 3 times now - we comment about never having said WOW so many times in our life in one day. Yesterday was no exception. We didn't leave here until 10:30 since we had planned to stay later to see more animal movement. Our objectives were to replace my lost cards, pick up a copy of the DVD that we have for Karen and George, see some areas we have not seen yet and to see how the time of day affects the animal movement.

The first stop was, of course, the entry gate where I did purchase another Lifetime Senior Pass to the National Parks. It is probably the best $10 bargain you can find anywhere. We then stopped at the Visitor's Center at Fishing Bridge, the first major turnoff in the Park and the start of the Grand Loop, and we got a free replacement card for the Yellowstone Association that, among other things, gives us a discount on purchases at any of the Yellowstone stores in the Park. We also picked up a copy of the DVD - The Complete Yellowstone - for Karen and George.

We decided to take the Lower Loop of the Grand Loop, so we headed south toward Old Faithful and the area where the Geyser's are plentiful. On the way there, we stopped at the top of a pass that was the Continental Divide:

For those that don't know the significance of the Continental Divide, rivers on the East side flow toward the East to connect with the Missouri and Mississippi, and those that are on the West side flow toward the Pacific Ocean.

The Lower Loop Road in Yellowstone actually crosses the Divide in 2 locations. Also, while at the location of the Divide, we found this pond that was totally covered with lilly pads:

We then came to Old Faithful, where we stopped to see how long it would be to another eruption. The crowd was already forming and we were told that the next eruption would be in about 15 minutes. Well, the crowd kept growing and growing:

And the next eruption actually took place about 35 minutes after we arrived:

We then drove north and wanted to stop at some of the Geyser locations that we didn't see the last time we were on this part of the Lower Loop Road. One of the big ones was the Midway Geyser Basin:

This was an area containing several large geysers, that had a "boardwalk" that you could use to walk around all of them. The first one was the Excelsior Geyser and was a huge hot spring that last erupted in the 1800's to form a crater around the north edge:

The pool that was formed looked like this:

While walking around the boardwalk to the other geysers, we saw several hats that were obviously blown off individuals during a gust of wind and people are forbidden to walk out on the unstable ground to retrieve them. We labeled this one - "I'm Melting, I'm Melting":

Continuing along the boardwalk, we came to what is called the Grand Prismatic Spring, and it was unbelievable. The colors were bright and varied and it was hard to believe that the water temperature in this spring was around 160 degrees:

Below is a photo of the runoff from these springs and pools that goes directly into the Firehole River:

We stopped and had a picnic lunch (dinner by then) further up the river. After dinner, we discovered a road that went along the river in an area where the river dropped at least a hundred feet in a 2 mile stretch. It created the Firehole Falls (below):

and wound through a canyon creating several smaller falls along the way:

The most unbelievable part of this drive along the one way street, was an area that we came upon that was packed full of parked cars, and we thought that maybe there was another falls or some animals that people stopped to photograph. Wrong! There was a swimming hole in this river and it was full of kids and adults swimming in this section of the river - a sample:

Finally, as the sun was beginning to go down and the time was marching on, we arrived at the eastern part of the Lower Loop Road at Canyon Village, and headed south to begin coming home. This is where we saw herds of Bison along the road, a grizzly bear (too far away to get a shot) and 2 of the largest bull elk you will ever see anywhere:

It was another outstanding day and one that we will remember for a long time - all of the days at Yellowstone are amazing. We arrived home at 10 PM and didn't stay up much longer.

There are some things that we hope to do today, and will tell about those tomorrow...