Rooftop

What trip to Yellowstone would be complete without seeing Old Faithful? Well, that was our adventure for the day. We headed over and got to see one eruption with front seats (after some waiting). The girls pretended to be excited by the false starts but it’s clear they didn’t get it. But then the eruption happened and they got why we were there.

We also explored the amazing lodge where I’m sure I bored the girls to tears with stories of my childhood where my sister and I got locked out of our room in our pajamas and the loge staff had to find our parents. The lodge is still as impressive now as it was as a kid, however, and I still yearned to climb all the way to the top.

After the lodge, we had lunch on a bench in front of Old Faithful. Talk about an epic lunch. The girls were scandalized by all the people who were getting off of the boardwalk and sticking their hands in the runoff from the geyser. Ella because she’s such a good rule follower, and Maddie because she’d seen the sign warning about breaking through thin crust and getting scalded. Either way, we were glad to have such well behaved daughters.

After lunch, we checked out the discovery/education center where the girls learned a little more about the park (as did we). We weren’t there too long before we decided to wind our way around the wood boardwalk and explore the other geysers, hot pots, pools, terraces, and variety of algal rafts (aka scum) until the girls were actually tired of hot water and stink. They loved it for a good 90 minutes though, given the variety of different ways that hot, stinky water can come out of the ground.

After Old Faithful, we drove north to Grand Prismatic to try and see the splendor of it’s amazing colors. Turns out, so did plenty of other people. There’s a short walk up, but the sheer size of the pools is amazing. Giant, turbulent pits of boiling death. It must have been amazing to watch the eruption, but I’ll take not getting burnt over a close up seat.

Just as we were about done at Grand Prismatic, something funny happened. I lifted Ella on to my shoulders so she could get a better view for a picture. When I lifted her up, her shoe caught my elbow and flew off the boardwalk and down into the moist runoff of the geyser. It was well out of arms reach and I sure as hell wasn’t going to get off the boardwalk out of principle (and fear). But I sure as hell couldn’t leave a purple and pink Croc sitting in this amazing piece of nature. So I carried Ella back to the car (she was so embarrassed) and grabbed my tripod and ran back. I was able to extend my tripod to it’s fullest, lay flat on the edge of the boardwalk, and extend my arm out and extract the Croc. The smugness I felt for my problem solving wasn’t shared by many because it was on the downhill side and during a lull in foot traffic. A few people chuckled at my misfortune but offered no support or congratulations. Tourists.

Here’s a recreation:

And here’s another of the Grand Prismatic. Epic.

We decided to make a grand loop of the trip, so we headed towards Madison, then to Canyon Village before winding back to Fishing Bridge. We got a surprise between Madison and Canyon though when it started to snow. In July. No biggie. It didn’t last long, and by the time we hit Canyon, it was just heavy rain, which lasted most of the way back to camp. We sat in traffic in the Hayden valley, which is apparently the norm, but we also saw some great herds of bison, and an elk, which didn’t cooperate for a photo.

When we got back to camp, the rain had passed. The girls played among the lodgepole pines, and even put together a pretty spectacular fort with some other kids. That, after all, was one of our motivations for getting a camper; the quick, fleeting friendships that occur within a campground. Anyway, the girls were having a grand old time when a Xanterra van pulled up and two contracted employees got out and said the kids couldn’t build stuff because it damaged the scenery or something. Oh, and we couldn’t take it down because they had to do it. But they had a flyer for us. This is what you get when you contract out work in the national parks. Miserable lackeys who hate fun. I was telling another park staff about it later, and she remarked “yeah, that’s why we’re called Xanterrorists.”

For the record, I hate the privatization of National Parks and such. This type of work should be a calling, not a job. Imagine if someone outsourced the clergy at your churches, synagogues or mosques. That is what the parks are; temples to the glory of this land.