Saturday - revisiting a few old friends

Saturday was our last day in Yellowstone - we were packing up at the Headwaters B&B in Gardiner and driving through the park to end up in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Our goal was to get to Jackson Hole before 8PM so we could go to the rodeo. But we had a fairly long agenda for the day, before we got to Jackson Hole. There were a few places we had missed, one hike we thought might be fun, and we wanted to see Old Faithful and Grand Prismatic Spring again. So, it was going to be a busy day. But first - we had to take advantage of wonderful breakfast and entertaining company at the B&B for one last time.

At the B&B on Saturday morning were a couple from the UK, who had seen much more of the United States than we had (or so it seemed), as well as an Italian couple who was living temporarily in Los Angeles. We did the normal - what have you seen, what do we need to see in the park kind of chatter. And then somehow we got Charissa talking about bear attacks. She told some entertaining stories about bear attacks and buffalo and moose attacks in the park, and in other areas of the country. I think we stayed at the breakfast table for 2 hours before we finally decided that we really needed to pack up and get on the road. So we finally said good-bye to Gardiner and headed south.

The Artists Paint Pots were on our "to-do" list. How had we missed them before? We had no idea. Until we were driving and I finally looked at the map and said "Damn, we passed them." But we hadn't seen a sign. A quick U-turn later, we discovered that the entire Artist Paint Pot area was closed, and the signs were covered up. That's how we had driven past them seven times already and not known it! So - cross one thing off the list.

Next stop was Fairy Falls, down by the Middle Geyser Basin. The hike was fairly boring and flat, 5 miles round trip. But the falls were cute. And on the way back we clambered up a hill, on an unofficial trail, to catch an awesome view of the Grand Prismatic from above. It was really really cool - not as much steam in the middle of the day so you could really see the pool itself. AND we met some more Hokies up on the hill! Hokies everywhere in Yellowstone. A re-visit to Grand Prismatic was on the "to-do" list, anyway, so we killed two birds with one stone on this little hike.

John walks up to Fairy Falls - a cute little waterfall

Look cute for your mom in front of Fairy Falls...
Grand Prismatic from ground level. The steam coming off the pool reflects the different colors of the pool, so you get blue steam, and pink steam. It's wild.
Bird's eye view of the Grand Prismatic Spring, with the Excelsior Pool in the background
Close-up of the colors on the edge

Our next "we want to see this again" visit was to Old Faithful, to try to do a few things. 1) Get good shots of the geyser without mist blowing in to our faces. 2) Get shots of the geyser with the Old Faithful lodge in the background. 3) Go see Old Faithful from way up on Observation Hill. Unfortunately, the way the wind was blowing, numbers 1 and 2 were not going to be possible at the same time. So I stayed upwind, and John took the little camera and went downwind to see if he could catch a moment of geyser, lodge, and no mist.

Old Faithful from my vantage point - in front of the mist
Seemed like Old Faithful erupted higher this time than on Monday. But maybe it just seemed that way because we could actually see it better this time.
The last bit of the eruption, and some geyser run-off
Old Faithful from John's side
And he did manage to catch a shift in the wind to get the geyser and the lodge in the same shot. Good work, John!

After this eruption we did a super quick walk of the rest of the Upper Geyser Basin around Old Faithful, then headed uphill for a mile to catch Old Faithful again, from Observation Hill.

Bit of an unpredictable little geyser. It was erupting a little bit when we were there.
It does look like a castle

Can't remember what this little pool is called, but it has an entertaining lip of minerals around the edge.
The trees soak up the minerals from the springs, turn white, and die. They look cool, though.
Cute little pool that was super clear and deep
Old Faithful Lodge
Where we were headed
We waited for a few minutes for this little one to erupt. Blow up the photo and read about it. Interesting stuff.
There it goes. Eruption. Wait - that was it? Yep! That's all, folks!
Gazillions of people waiting for Old Faithful
Faithful, as always!

After we hiked down off Observation Hill we decided we didn't have time to do the little 4 mile hike we wanted to do on the way to the Tetons. So - we'll just have to go back! :-) So off we headed, out the south entrance of Yellowstone, in to the National Forest that joins the two parks, and in to the Tetons. It's really pretty crazy - for two parks that are so close to each other (maybe 45 miles apart) they are SO different. The landscape is completely different. Different trees in the mountains. Not nearly as much fire damage in the Tetons. And such a different feel. Yellowstone feels crowded and touristy. The Tetons feel like people are out DOING stuff. The hiking trail heads were packed. People were biking and kayaking and rock climbing. We saw none of that in Yellowstone. Maybe we just didn't go to the right places...

At our first view of the Tetons, John said "Those mountains look mean..."
The Tetons with Jackson Lake in the foreground
Catching the late afternoon sun
Amazing. I could look at the mountains forever. My neck was hurting from so much looking out the side window!

We checked in to our hotel in Jackson at about 8:30, changed clothes quickly, and headed out to the fair grounds for the rodeo. Entertaining stuff, and some seriously good people watching. Women still have big 80's hair out here... Oh, wait. They still do in Aberdeen, too! :-)

OK, these photos are pretty crappy. But the kids doing barrel racing were SOOO cute!
How freaking cute is that!!! Awesome, fantastic horses that took care of their kids.
Saddle bronc riding, which is apparently way harder than bareback riding. You get to hold on to the reins. That's it. No tying your hand to the horse, like they do for bull riding.
A quick dismount. Nobody lasted all 8 seconds

After a tour of the animal barn to check out different breeds of cows and goats and sheep, and a stop at the funnel cake place, we headed back home for a good night's sleep. So long, Yellowstone. Hello Tetons!