According to my mom's guidebook, Tubby's Bakery was the best place in town for breakfast. We drove through the town one or two times, but we could not find it. We looked up the address and drove to where it was supposed to be (29 Canyon St.), but instead of Tubby's there was a new cafe! Apparently the famed Tubby's had been replaced.
We went inside anyway and found out that Tubby's had recently been bought out by this new place, but that it was pretty much the same place. We all ordered different pastries and coffees, packed them in the car, then headed back to Yellowstone. The food was all great, but the most notable were definitely the chocolate croissants, which were more like chocolate cakes.
We made our way through the park to the North Rim of The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, which is where we had been the day before to see the awesome view from the Lower Falls area. On our way to the North Rim, we had to stop several times for road work delays and animal sighting delays.
The most common sight in Yellowstone: a line of cars.We also stopped at a few geysers along the way. Here is the Steamboat Geyser.
Finally, we made it back to the North Rim of the Canyon. We were planning to check out Inspiration Point, one of the most beautiful views of the Canyon, but we were undecided about the best way to get there. My dad, Allison, and I wanted to walk along the North Rim trail to the point, while my mom and Emily wanted to drive there and save time to see other things in the park. Eventually, we decided to split up and meet at Inspiration Point. We parked at what we thought was Grand View, the closest scenic viewpoint to Inspiration Point, so we were planning on the hike being less than half a mile. However, we had actually parked at the Lower Falls, so our hike ended up being about two and a half miles, a little longer than expected. 
Luckily, the hike was pleasant and the snow coming down through the trees made it look even cooler. Plus, we got to see all the great views from Lookout Point, Grand View, and eventually, Inspiration Point. 
From there we crossed the Yellowstone River and parked at another trail: Uncle Tom's Trail. This one led to the appropriately-named, Artist Point. This time, Emily, Allison, my dad and I decided to hike the trail while my mom went ahead to Artist Point. This trail was much shorter than the last (or, at least, it would have been if we hadn't accidentally taken a wrong turn at the beginning of the hike and ended up back in the parking lot), so we reached Artist Point in less time. As we got close to the end of the trail, we heard a faint roar in the trees, which freaked everyone out after the recent bear sightings. Fortunately, it was just my mom, who got bored waiting for us and decided to hide in the trees and scare us. 
As soon as we heard the bear sound, we froze and slowly turned around...Artist Point was yet another incredible view in Yellowstone Park.
Once we had finished looking at the Upper Falls and the scenic viewpoints along the river, we decided to check out some more geysers. We drove to a trail that went along a series of geysers, including Mud Volcano, which used to be a volcano until an earthquake and extremely hot temperatures caused it to blow itself apart, leaving just the bubbling insides to remain, Black Dragon's Caldron, Sour Lake, which smelled the way it sounds, Mud Caldron, which looked like an opening into hell, with steam rising out of what appeared to be bottomless cracks in the earth, Sulfur Caldron, and Dragon Mouth's Spring, which is a dark cave with a bubbling hellpot of mud and sulphur spewing out of it. 
The cracks of hell.Mud Volcano
Where Mud Volcano used to stand.
Dragon Mouth's Spring. It looked, as Emily said, "the place in Harry Potter 6 where they go to destroy the first Horcrux."We decided at this point that we were pretty hungry, so we began making our way to the Lake Yellowstone Lodge, which had a cafeteria inside. On our way, we stopped at the Le Hardy Rapids, which according to a nearby Park Ranger, were only a level 3 (out of 5).
The food at the cafeteria was good and the lodge itself was gorgeous. 
After we finished eating, we went to the nearby Yellowstone Lake Hotel, which looked WAY too much like the hotel from The Shining. In fact, it looked so much like it that we were convinced that everyone in the room was in fact, dead, and we were slowly going crazy. 
This view from the front of the hotel gave it more of a "Shutter Island" feel.I even took this picture of my mom and Allison coming back from the bathroom.
We exited the hotel as quickly as possible and regained our sanity. Our next stop of the day was back at Old Faithful, where we wanted to buy a few souvenirs that we hadn't had a chance to buy yet. After purchasing our souvenirs, it was time for Old Faithful to go off, so we stayed and watched. The explosion, as always, was mind-shattering. 
On our way back to the Old Faithful parking lot, we saw a small gray animal running across the open field across the street. My mom took out her binoculars and saw that it was a GRAY WOLF, definitely the coolest animal you could ever see at Yellowstone (yes, it does trump a grizzly).
After the wolf was far enough away, we returned to our car and headed out for our last stop of the day: The Grand Prismatic Spring. Emily had been waiting all day for this place, which was supposed to look incredible. We raced to get there before the sun went down, and once we got there, we sprinted past the other geysers to get to the Grand Prismatic. Once we reached the GPS, we were blown away. It was definitely the coolest geyser we had seen (perhaps even better than Old Faithful) and ranked among the coolest things we had seen the entire trip. It looked like we were walking on another planet, maybe Mercury or Venus. The spring itself was hard to see with all the steam coming out of it, but when we did see it, it was amazing.
On the way back to the car, we had to go through some pretty dense geyser-clouds.
I almost fell off trying to take these pictures.Before returning to the car and heading back to the hotel, we saw one of these awesome Tweety-looking birds:
It was a good way to end the day.
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