Hello Everyone! Happy Wednesday!! I’m back today sharing another post from our trip out west. If you missed my other recaps, be sure to start there.
Glacier National Park
We had reserved a tour for this Thursday in Yellowstone that drove us along the lower loop. It was great! We used Yellowstone Day Tours. The van picked us up right from where we were staying about 7:30 in the morning. The van was full of drinks, and the driver James had picked up donuts for all of us. It was just the three of us and 2 other adults. It was great! The weather that day, not so much.
Our first drive by was seeing Firehole Falls. There was a big osprey nest, so they have the area roped off that you aren’t able to stop.
Our next stop was at the Grand Prismatic Springs. So sad that it was so foggy/rainy that the steam did not allow us to see all the colors and the beauty of the springs. It was still beautiful.
This area is very dangerous but has a raised walkway all around the springs. There are signs everywhere to not step off the walkways. There aren’t handrails all around the path, so it did freak me out a little- being who I am.
It was so windy and steamy, it really was hard to see anything.
We left there and drove over the the Old Faithful area. There were geysers across the road when we pulled into the parking lot that were steaming.
Old Faithful is semi predictable as far as when it’s going to “erupt”. However, the times have spread out more than it used to just due to changes going on under the ground, all the time. Sometimes people have to wait a long time for an eruption. We were lucky because it was slated to spew in about 15 minutes from when we arrived.
I know it isn’t anything spectacular, but we really enjoyed watching it. And then it died down and was over in about maybe 10-15 minutes.
We went back over to the Inn afterward. It was very neat. Lots of history. It was built in 1903. It only took 13 months and most was built in the winter, so the sleds could carry in supplies on the frozen ground and not get marred up in the mud in the warmer months.
We went on inside. We really wanted a hot beverage like coffee or cocoa but weird enough, their power was out and only had iced. We declined. The generators were still able to keep some lights on inside.
It was so amazing inside. Some of the rooms are still like dorm style and don’t have a bathroom. You have to use a community type bathroom.
In this picture below, there is a crows nest in the very top, where the band used to play. However, nobody is allowed up there anymore due to not having a fire escape.
I took a picture of this eruption predictor inside.
We drove by Biscuit Basin. This area was closed due to a recent eruption and the scientists were observing.
We traveled on to a little pond that separated the Continental Divide.
We drove out to West Thumb by Yellowstone Lake. You can see it’s very dreary. We saw a herd of elk in a clearing out that way and a couple bald eagles.
We drove back and stopped by the General Store in the Fishing Bridge area. This is where we grabbed some souvenirs and shopped around.
After some shopping, we drove on and stopped by the Mud Volcano area. This area was very cool. We especially thought the Dragon’s Mouth was fun! This area was pretty smelly from sulfur.
We traveled on, and we stopped by the Yellowstone River for a lunch break. Our tour included lunch, so we just had to choose our sandwich, and our sack came with chips, an apple, water and a treat.
After stopping for a few and eating, our guide James knew where we might have a good chance of seeing a grizzly. A grizzly had killed an Elk a few days prior and had been hanging out and eating on the carcass.
We spotted some Bison/Buffalo.
Do you see the dark area there? That’s the grizzly. Our guide set up his phone to a telescope, and we were able to see it super up close. It was an awesome set up!
It was crazy how many other tourists were coming up and asking our tour guide questions. It was cracking us up… I’m like he’s our guy, but he didn’t mind.
We finally felt like we had enough of seeing the grizzly and moved on. We came across a big Elk right beside the road.
We moved along to the Grand Canyon area. We stopped by the south rim first.
The scenery was amazing! So beautiful! The pictures, of course, don’t really do it justice.
You can see storm clouds rolling in the background.
As we moved on to the North rim, the storm caught us! What a crazy storm! It was lightning and thundering. Then it starting hailing and pinging off of us like crazy. We had umbrellas, but we also didn’t want to get struck by lightning holding a metal rod. So, we quickly visited the north rim area and ran back to the van.
That pretty much rounded out the lower loop of the park, and we headed back toward West Yellowstone for our drop off. We caught these two elk.
And, we were back. I would definitely recommend this tour if anyone asked! We all learned so much, and it was great navigating around with him able to drop us off right up front if there wasn’t any parking. James was so nice and dropped us off at a recommended restaurant for dinner about 5:00. It was Firehole BBQ and a really awesome vibe. We had delicious brisket/pork and shared a couple sides.
We had a short walk back to where we stayed. It rained on us a bit on the walk.
I snapped a pic of this shirt in a shop. It was humorous, but people do get too close. These animals are not our friends. There was a man you may have seen on the news very shortly after we got home that was tossed into the air by a buffalo. So scary!
And that wraps up our day touring the lower loop.
I hope you guys are having a great week! See ya on Friday!
xo
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Wow! Such an incredible trip!!