Yellowstone Trip: Day 1 - Old Faithful

Continuing on from the Grand Tetons National Park, we entered Yellowstone Park through the South entrance and then drove half-way up the lower West loop in order to see Old Faithful and the surrounding hot springs.

Dad thought Old Faithful wasn't as great as he thought it should have been. He felt that it should have been bigger and longer. I, on the other hand, thought it was kind of fun! I mean, really, how often am I going to see that much water come out with such gigantic force?! Maybe if I was a fireman I'd see it regularly, but that's not really in my plans. :)

I had a ton of pictures of Old Faithful, but I decided to share only the two most important ones...Old Faithful in action!! :) From this point on are the hot springs around Old Faithful. Mom & I took a 3-mile hike around the park to see some 25 different hot springs/geysers and it was fun! I can't remember for sure, but I think that the information said that the more blue the water was in the hot springs, the more hot it was. I could easily have that mixed up, though. Mom knows, so maybe she can fill us in? :)

I think that this one was called Castle Rock geyser.

I have no idea what this hot spring was called, but I love how these holes in the middle of the spring just disappear into the ground. It's so neat! :)

This is the back of Castle Rock geyser, which had a much better view of the geyser spouting off.

Pretty scenery...

This particular hot spring was called Morning Glory pool. A co-worker mentioned it to me and we googled it one day and it was really neat to actually see it in real life. It has very pretty coloring!

After our hike, we decided to head out of the park (going out the East entrance) to spend the night in Cody. We really didn't see many animals during our trip. We saw elk but we didn't take pictures because everyone else was taking a picture and it was too congested. We saw some foxes (??? or maybe it was wolves? Or maybe a coyote? Dad, what was it? The silver one and the white one? Sheesh...I can't remember) and then we saw a TON of buffalo. How close? This close (see below). This guy almost became a "Creme Buff" (get it? creme puff! haha!) because we were thatclose to eliminating him out on the road. Not on purpose, either! We were driving and then there he was!! It was an exciting moment, that's for sure! This picture is compliments of my dad as we slowly drove through the herd that was roaming down the road. I don't think I would have wanted to be any closer!! :)