Sonya's Blog - Day 4

We are off to explore the park in earnest today, we have the whole day and no plans to come back to the RV until supper time. Isaac made the picnic lunch (PB and J, which I topped off with snacks and drinks, he only made the sandwiches and called it good:)

Our first detour of the day was to Firehole Canyon Drive. It is a little one-way loop that runs off the main drive that goes around Yellowstone. It was a must cool and pretty drive. We stopped at the Firehole Falls first and those were really neat. Took lots of pictures. We then drove some more and came to the swimming hole. The kids and Blake headed down and came back to report that the water was quite warm. It was still quite early in the morning and not too hot yet so they didn’t go for a swim - plus no swim gear.

Firehole Falls, Yellowstone

We then headed off towards Old Faithful. The road was pretty busy by this time and the traffic was moving pretty slowly and coming to full stops at times (as it turned out that was because of a Bison Herd). We wanted to visit the Fountain Paint Pots, but couldn’t even get in the parking lot, so decided to just head to Old Faithful.

Fun Fact - Dogs are not allowed to hike anywhere in Yellowstone National Park! No easy peasy trails, no backcountry hiking, nothing. We were allowed to have her around the parking lot and that is about it. Essentially we had walked to Harlequin Lake with Kizmet yesterday, and did so illegally - mostly because we did not know they had such a ridiculous rule! Lots of people don’t know, there were dogs everywhere and some upset people. It is not like they have a huge posting at the gates or anything and the first we heard of it was when we were around Old Faithful. We then went in to find out where we could hike with our dog and were told, nowhere in the park. So that was unfortunate and changed our plans for the day. We couldn’t leave her in the truck as it was far to hot (+30ish) and we really did not want to take her back to the RV as we were about an hour and a bit in at this point. We decided to do one of the circle drives of Yellowstone, which essentially goes around the caldera.

So we left Old Faithful after we had seen the eruption - it was most cool!

OLD FAITHFUL, Yellowstone

We headed off to explore what we could with our dog in tow. There is lots to see on the many roadside turnouts without hiking in so we decided to do that. We were heading towards Yellowstone Lake, but first grabbed a pic at the Continental Divide and the kids learned what that meant - everything on the west side flows into the Pacific and everything on the East side flows towards the Atlantic.

GREAT DIVIDE, YELLOWSTONE, WYOMING!

We then headed to West Thumb, which is a section of Yellowstone Lake. It was pretty fantastic and was a volcano within a volcano that made a pretty cool geological formation with lots more geysers and pools of boiling water.

Even at the lake edge there are geysers and neat formations. We took turns walking around the boardwalks that circle these various pools and geysers. There was one that was actually in the parking lot that looked like a huge cauldron of boiling liquid.

Blake heard a lady complaining about the no dogs rule and why do they hate dogs. The Ranger said that she should read Death in Yellowstone and the there is a story in there about a guy and his dog. The dog was off leash or something and got away and jumped into one of these pools (average temperature 93 degrees C) and the guy decided to save him. Took him 2 days after that to die, pretty sure the dog died at the scene, but I haven't read the recounting. It actually makes sense that dogs are not allowed around the pools and geysers with the boardwalks and steam and wild events. However, some of the backcountry hikes are pretty benign, but I guess they had to make a blanket rule.

After that we circled around Yellowstone Lake and headed towards The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone - didn’t even know that was a place. It was most certainly very Grand and a Canyon to boot. We went to Artist’s point which had spectacular views and also did the Grand lookout or something like that.

GRAND CANYON OF YELLOWSTONE

We then headed to Norris and then Canyon Village and explored around there a bit and picked up something to eat. We then headed back. Saw some Elk on the way and lots of Bison. We got back to the RV at about 7:30 so it was a long day being out and about. Yellowstone is a beautiful Park to be sure with amazing topographical changes as you travel around it.

Amber, I just want to say thank-you for letting us use your camping table, it has been super handy already, but especially at this campsite as the tables are little round things, not picnic tables. We are all very thankful to you because it has made eating outside much easier. Also, I took this pic for you of this cool camper and truck - I thought of you the minute I saw it:

So Fantastic!!!