Winter Family Travels in 2005: Day Thirty Eight

We woke up to our first cloudy day with rain off and on in more than a week. It was a nice break. We decided to get going to go see Old Faithful. It is not the largest geyser in the park, but it is the most consistent, blowing around every 94 minutes. On our way to old faithful, and it was at least an hour and half from camp we took a side road called the Firehole lake road. This side road has a few geyers on it. We stopped first at the White Dome geyser. It has a wonderful cone and we saw a bit of steam and finally we saw a bit of water. Nothing happened so we thought we had better get going. We were all in the truck and Stewart looked back to check the road and the geyser was blowing. We all jumped out and had a good show.

We arrived at Old Faithful about 11.oo and it was supposed to go at 12.10. We had an early lunch and then went to get a good seat. The show started about 8 min late, but you can't complain. We took a video so let us hope that it works. An amazing wonder of nature. We took a look at the Yellowstone Inn, the orginal log building is under renovation and badly needed I would say. It was first built in 1904.

We headed back to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone (in the vicinity of our campsite). A beautiful canyon and the reason for the name of Yellowstone. We hiked at several points and went to the lower falls. As we arrived home it was getting very cloudy and looking very stormy. Margot, Kaitlin and Brenna headed over for a shower and Stewart a quick nap. Just as the girls got back the heavens opened. First to hail as we dived into the truck for shelter and then pouring rain. We really didn't want to open up the kitchen tent and tonight's menu was hamburgers. We decided to try going to the Canyon Village to try and eat at the Lodge. We definetly didn't want to have cafeteria food again for dinner. The wait was over an hour, so Stewart and Margot decided to brave the rain and get the grill going in the rain. The girls stayed dry in the car and listened to Lemony Snicket. *** Warning for this story: the girls like it but Margot and Stewart find it extremely tedious. *** Our burgers cooked with the help of tin foil keeping the heat in and the rain out. Neighbours moved in and tried to set up their tent in the pouring rain, so we headed over to help them out.

Off to bed and hope for sun in the morning.