Our first day in Yellowstone started out comfortably cool, sunny and…crowded and it pretty much stayed that way.
It’s not a big surprise there are crowds, it’s the busiest time of the year at Yellowstone and outdoor vacations are especially popular in our almost post-COVID world. Plus the park is amazing!
Once we settled in to the slow pace we enjoyed a picnic lunch of PB&Js, carrots and bananas and then headed to the main attraction- Old Faithful.
We got to the geyser seating area when it was empty. We got a front row seat but it must have just gone off because we had a long wait.
By the time this video was taken we’d been waiting an hour, a crowd had joined and we’d had a couple underwhelming false starts on the water spray. There are thousands of professional videos of Old Faithful erupting but the best part of ours is CreeperPuppy and CreeperKitty’s commentary going from ‘boring’ to ‘wow’.
Our last nature adventure of the day was a 1.5 mile round trip hike to the Grand Prismatic Hot Spring overlook. The spring is 370 ft in diameter and 121 feet deep and this picture doesn’t do justice to the colors. Along the walk we saw several small geysers bubbling merrily, some deep but stunningly clear smaller springs and we think, way off in the distance, a bald eagle perched on top of a tree. No bear or moose sightings today but fingers crossed for tomorrow.
For dinner we had another picnic (crowded restaurants still aren’t our favorite with unvaccinated kids) but we got ribs, brisket and mac n cheese from Firehole BBQ Company which is two blocks from our hotel and was featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. This picnic did not disappoint and was a great way to end a wonderful day.
5 Adventures Together 