Day 7: On to Montana

Our time in Yellowstone was over (for now) and our next stop was in Montana to see the battlefield at Little Bighorn. So, on the morning of Day 7, we packed up our stuff and checked out of the Holiday Inn in West Yellowstone. Before leaving the town, we stopped at (formerly) Tubby’s Bakery to get another great breakfast.

As we were waiting for our food to come out, a guy walked in the door and a couple people from behind the counter yelled out, “Hey Turtle! What’s happening?” This name rang a bell to my mom. In her Moon guidebook on Yellowstone and Grand Teton, there was a blurb about Tubby’s Bakery: Stop by Tubby’s Bakery for a morning cup of coffee and fresh-from-the-oven pastry. If you’re lucky, Turtle will be the barista pulling your espresso shots and foo-foo drinks; he really knows coffee. Could this man really be the Turtle? My mom went to ask him and it turned out that it was. We had just seen our first celebrity of the trip.

Our plan was to drive through the northern part of Yellowstone Park to the northeast exit, where we would continue on through Montana to Little Bighorn. It wasn’t long before we had to pull over to check out something cool: a little coyote was darting back and forth through the woods and trotting across the road. Check that animal off the list.The next thing we stopped for was a grizzly with its cub! It was difficult to see the cub at first because they were walking through the high grass, but every once in a while the cub would stand up on its hind legs and look around, which was pretty much the funniest thing you can ever see. When the bears crossed the road, notice how, once again, no one decides to move out of the way. The next place we decided to go was Mammoth Springs, the place where, two days before, we had survived the lightning storm. We didn’t care so much about checking out the springs as we did about checking out the gift store. It was our last chance to buy souvenirs before we left the park. So, after we each got our final postcards and mugs, we said goodbye to Yellowstone and entered Montana. Our first stop in Montana was in a tiny mountain town at a restaurant that was obsessed with the Pittsburgh Steelers. There was memorabilia everywhere, including newspaper articles, plastic cups, and Superbowl shirts hanging on the walls. By the time we sat down at our table, I was expecting Ben Roethlisberger to be our waiter. Fortunately, he was not. Allison, my dad, and I ordered the restaurant specialty: the Cheddar Bomb burger. They were very, very good.

We ate quickly because we had a long drive ahead of us. The first part of the drive was through the mountains, which were covered in snow. At one point, the snow on the side of the road piled at least five feet high. Allison and I wanted to see what snow felt like in mid-June. On our way out of the mountains, we pulled over to check out an abandoned mining town, where a disaster in 1943 tragically killed 74 men (click on the picture below to read about it). They had left the town up as a memorial to the men who died.
After we left the mountains, we had a few more hours on the road until we finally stopped for the day. We checked into the Super 8 Motel in Hardin, Montana, near the battlefield at Little Bighorn.

Day 6: Yellowstone Part Deux

Our second full day at Yellowstone began once again in West Yellowstone. This day was much, much colder than the previous day...and it was snowing. In mid-June. Luckily, we had all planned for it to be freezing so we had the proper clothing for it.

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.

Day 5: Full Day at the 'Stone

Yellowstone is not really a place that you can see in two and a half days. To do it justice, you would probably have to spend at least a week there. But on this vacation, we don't have a week to dedicate solely to Yellowstone, so we did it in two and a half days. Day 5 was our first full day there and we certainly did a lot.

We began the day at the Running Bear Pancake House in West Yellowstone. I thought the food was great and I think that my family would agree. As one of the reviews on Trip Advisor said, it has "good food and good people." It definitely does. (on a side note, I'm not sure if child labor laws are enforced in Montana, because two guys working at the restaurant looked like they were about eleven or twelve years old).

After breakfast, we went straight into the park. Our first stop was at a place called Artists Paint Pots which was a collection of geysers with different colored stuff inside of them (hence the name, paint pots). Unfortunately, you'll just have to look at the link for pictures, because I did not take any. When I saw the sign for Artists Paint Pots, I thought we were actually going to an art exhibit so I did not bring my camera. When we finished the loop of the geysers, I asked my mom where the art exhibit was.

We faced many road work delays getting to our next stop, Liberty Rock and Mammoth Springs.

By the time we got there, a huge storm had moved over us. On our walk up to Mammoth Springs, a Park Ranger shouted that everyone needed to get off the path and get under some shelter. As we headed back to our car, we overheard a couple asking the same Ranger who had just been yelling for everyone to leave to take their picture next to the Springs, which they were walking up to go see.
We waited out the thunderstorm in the safety of our car and we soon realized that we were one of the few families doing that. Everyone was still outside walking around, even though lightning was striking less than five miles away. We even saw one family eating on a metal picnic table under three enormous trees. Everyone's having a good time.

When the storm ended, we went inside another Visitor's Center near Mammoth Springs. This one had another film about the Park that only my dad and I went to see. After a pretty good start to the film featuring some great historical footage of the early days of the Park, the movie quickly turned (once again) into a propaganda piece. This time, it was for America. For whatever reason, shots of Yellowstone faded out to a scene of Thomas Jefferson writing the Declaration of Independence. "We hold these truths to be..." he pauses for a second, as he thinks about the historical words that he is writing "...self-evident." A couple shots of Independence Hall later, my dad turns to me and says, "Let's go."

We walked upstairs to see a cool exhibit of all the animals you can see while you are at Yellowstone. This was probably the closest I would get to a big-horned sheep.

We spent the next few hours driving around the park and stopping to look at the countless gorgeous views of Yellowstone. Here are just a few:


We also took a few funny pictures, like this one of a tree cruhsing me.

It wasn't long before we hit another traffic jam. This jam seemed to be for an animal sighting rather than for road work (there are subtle differences in the two types of traffic jams at Yellowstone). We rolled down our window to ask a lady walking by if there was an animal ahead. "Oh yeah, there's a big ol' grizzly up there!" she told us.

By this point in the trip, we had our animal sighting routine down to a science. My mom pulled out her binoculars and immediately got eyes on the animal. Allison opened the sun roof and stuck her head out so that she could get a full 360 view of the area and keep track of the animal if it moved. Emily and I took out our cameras and got them ready to capture the animal. My dad's main focus was controlling the vehicle and taking turns looking through the binoculars.
We saw the grizzly and watched it as it slowly made its way to the street. We noticed that everyone near the grizzly was more concerned about getting a National Geographic-worthy picture of the grizzly than the were about their own safety. Once they did realize, however, everything they had been reading on all the warning signs around Yellowstone about what to do when a bear approaches you went straight out the window. There was one guy in particular who had been taking pictures of the bear as if the bear was his model in a photo shoot when he realized that he needed to get out of there. Instead of slowly backing up to his car, he took off sprinting in front of the bear, demonstrating to everyone watching what you are not supposed to do when a bear gets near you.
Our next stop was at a viewpoint for the Lower Yellowstone Falls, which we had to hike a little ways to get to. The hike down was pretty easy going down, because we were basically walking down the side of a mountain. The view of the falls was the best view we had seen in the park yet, so the hike straight back up the mountain was well worth it.




There was a quote on a sign near the top of the hike that eloquently described the view. However, we were more interested in his name and what his parents must have been thinking than what Mr. Thomas Thomas was actually saying.
As the day came to a close, we visited one more group of hot springs and geysers before heading back to our Holiday Inn in West Yellowstone.

Day 4: Moving on to Yellowstone

Day 4 was our last day checking out those magnificent Tetons as we moved on to Yellowstone National Park.After checking out of the hotel, we piled in the car and started driving towards Yellowstone through Grand Tetons National Park. Unfortunately, we didn't get very far before noticing a strange sound coming from the front tire wells of our rented Chevy Tahoe. It sounded like something scraping against the bottom of the car or pressing against the tires, so we decided it was better to be safe than sorry and we drove back to the airport to see about getting a new rental car. Hey, it may not perform well, but it sure does look good silhouetted against the mountain covered skyline.

The rental agency apologized and gave us the keys to another Chevy Tahoe (charcoal-colored this time). We drove out to the lot to pick it up and soon after repacking all of our luggage into the new car, we noticed that the A/C did not work. At all. So my dad ran back inside to see about getting a new car.

The new car they gave us was a Yukon...which didn't have a middle seat for Allison...so my dad went back in to get a fourth car. This one finally worked. It was a white Chevy Suburban...even bigger than the Tahoe. We didn't even have to put the backseat down to fit the luggage in the trunk!

Before we left for Yellowstone, we drove back to the Grand Tetons Visitor's Center to send a couple postcards. As we were leaving the Center, we saw a bunch of cars pulled off to the side of the road which, as you already know, means that there's been an animal sighting. My mom reached for her binoculars and looked through the trees to see...a moose! It was one of the few animals we hadn't seen yet (I have been waiting for years to see a big-horned sheep, which I still have yet to see..) so it was exciting to see it, especially when we were just about to leave the Grand Tetons. I also used this opportunity to take another shot of a Chevy against the skyline:After checking out the moose for a while and waiting to see if he was going to do anything cool, we decided to finally head out to Yellowstone, which is just north of Grand Tetons.

We entered at the southeast entrance and our first stop was at a place called Clark Lake (or maybe Clark Falls) where we took pictures of a waterfall and a small bridge. Next, we stopped at a cool sign marking the Continental Divide and the current elevation. I guess the road that we were on curved back and forth across the Continental Divide, because soon after we began seeing signs for it every mile or so.

From that point on, we basically made our way through the park bit by bit, stopping every time we saw an animal or scenic viewpoint. And let me tell you, in Yellowstone it is very, very hard to go more than a mile or so without seeing one of those two things. There were animals everywhere! Elk and bison definitely made up the greatest majority (they are more populous than squirrels and birds are on the east coast).

We eventually made it to the Visitor's Center, which had a cool exhibit on the famous wildfire of 1988, which affected 36% of the park and forced it to close down to visitors until it was eventually put out by snowfall in early September. We also went into the theater at the center to watch a film on the fires, which ended up being a half-hour long propaganda piece about how the National Park Service was right in their decision to let wildfires burn out naturally in the park instead of stepping in to prevent them (which they did end up doing) and that the fire was, in the end, a wonderful thing for the park. Apparently, the "self-proclaimed experts of wildfires" in the American media and public were completely wrong about viewing wildfires in a negative light. You'll notice some of the dead trees lying on the hill in the back...it's as if they are saying, "Thank you, fire."

We left the theater and decided to go to Old Faithful next to see the famous geyser erupt. On this day the geyser was going off at 90 minute intervals, so we had to wait about an hour once we reached the Old Faithful area. While we were waiting, we went into the small Old Faithful lodge and got a bite to eat and an Old Faithful Ale to drink.
By the time Old Faithful was planning to erupt, we were sitting outside on one of the hundreds of benches surrounding the geyser. It began giving off little bursts of steam, which got everyone extremely excited and caused Allison to use nearly all of the memory on her camera recording a video of what was happening. A chipmunk waiting for Old Faithful to go off.

Finally, the real thing happened and yes, it was very awesome. The thing blew up very very high and everyone clapped after it went off for a few minutes. After Old Faithful, we decided to walk along this wooden path that gives you a tour of some smaller geysers nearby. There were warning signs everywhere about stepping off the path into the "thermal area."Apparently, you are not supposed to jump up and down on the geysers.

Some of the geysers were really cool and were really blue or bubbled up with weird-looking mud. Some of the geysers gave off really funky smells.
When we finished the walk, we went over to the magnificent Old Faithful Inn, which is probably the most incredible hotel I've ever seen.
We spent some time in the gift shop inside the hotel and by the time we finished it was time for Old Faithful to go off again. We went outside to see it from a different angle and in a different light, which actually made it look even cooler than before.

When the geyser finished exploding, we went back to the car and made our way out of the park. On our way, we saw another group of bison with their children: