Day 13: “Old Faithful”

We figure we better head south before we get snowed in. But not without seeing Old Faithful first. We check out of the campground and head south. We stop at the lake, which we can now see and are rewarded with beautiful views of the snow capped mountains we traversed to get here. We also have a coyote cross in front of us on the road. They’re much prettier here than on the canals at home! In fact, we think it is a wolf at first, but it’s much too small. We also see a female elk.

Yellowstone is full of treasures. Every place you see a little wooden road sign and a parking lot, you will be rewarded with something amazing within walking distance. We stop at one called Kepplar rapids, which looks very unassuming. You walk out to a wooden platform, look down and there is a huge drop down to rapids that go on for miles. We’re maybe 30 feet from the motorhome.

We arrive to Old Faithful and see that we have 50 plus minutes to burn before the next eruption. This gives us a chance to walk around the path to see some other geysers. The Anenome Geyser looks just like it sounds. It bubbles up, sprays and empties before our eyes. We notice a group of people by the beehive geyser. It’s spraying a bit and kind of stinky, but they’re all staring at it. We look around a bit and decide to head back We walk back by the anemone and hear someone say, “Look, it’s going!” The beehive has erupted and is shooting up 20 feet in the air and goes on for a good 5 minutes. If we had stayed where we were, we would have been right in it. Dave looks at the group running for cover and says, Mom would have freaked out with her baby in that. Yep…I would have.

We’re a hungry, grumpy family by the time Old Faithful does go off. Even Carter is whining. Not to make it sound anticlimactic-it was very cool, it just seemed like barely escaping the beehive geyser was more exciting. And we’re hungry.

After a quick lunch, we head out of the park and on to the Grand Tetons! The Teton National Forest touches Yellowstone so it’s a fairly short drive today. Before we know it, we’re at our campground. We know they’re there, but can’t see the Tetons looming above us for the cloud cover. We have reservations, but apparently the guy who took our money 2 months ago failed to reserve a site for us. The camp is full, except for the first site at the entry. Dave grumbles enough to get us out of paying for the second night we have reserved and we decide to spend tomorrow night in Jackson Hole.

Which is good, because being the first site in the park means you enjoy all the traffic heading into the campground…and all the traffic heading out of the campground. It’s almost comical after awhile. We have a yummy dinner of shrimp scampi and pasta…counting the RV’s parading by. I’m singing “Rollin, rollin, rollin” and Jack’s singing “the wheels on the bus”.

We look across the dinner table and realize that Jack’s face is covered in hives and is swelling. Probably the tree bark he was rubbing on his face on our walk? We quickly give him a Benedryl strip and wait. The rash calms down, but he is wired. He throws on his knit toboggan hat and exclaims, “I’m a bumble bee!” while jumping on the bed. He buzzes about for an hour, then demands a milk and crawls into bed. His sweet little snores fill the galley tonight.
It is raining outside, probably would have been snow in Yellowstone. We decide it was a good idea to leave a day early. We’ve also been unable to connect to internet or use our cell phones, which is a strange experience. We feel completely disconnected. Ha- we may have to bring the girls back as teenagers! Of course, by then they’ll probably have Wifi in Yellowstone.