Once again, we set our alarm for 5 AM so that we could head to Schwabacher Landing and see the sunrise on the Teton mountains. Because we were checking out of our Airbnb, we worked hard the night before to get everything all packed up and ready to go.
As we were driving into the park, we were debating whether or not to go to a higher up overlook or risk the parking situation at Schwabacher Landing. We ended up going to the landing and we were glad that we did because the parking wasn’t too bad and the sunrise on the mountains was really beautiful. The mountains turned a slight shade of pink as the sun started to hit them, and they were reflected in the river right below. It was one of the prettiest things I’ve ever seen and we definitely felt like we were in an elite group of people who were lucky enough to be in that exact spot!
Once the sun had risen, we doubled back to see the morning light on the Tetons one last time before hopping in the car and heading to Yellowstone. It was hard to leave, but we were excited to see what was coming next!
After stopping in Colter Bay to get a stamp in my passport and to get oriented, we headed right to the Old Faithful geyser. We knew from talking to the Park Ranger at the gate that it was due to erupt not too long after we were going to get there. So we parked the car and headed right to the viewing platform. We got a bench right up front and we waited only a few minutes before it erupted! There was a little bit of a breeze, so the steam sort of came more towards us than off to the side, which meant that it wasn’t easy to see the geyser itself. I was surprised at how quiet it was. It burst up through the ground and had a pretty steady stream, but yet didn’t really make a lot of noise.
Once it was finished, and we had taken all of our photos and videos and selfies, we headed into the gift store for a bathroom break and some shopping and then we saw the lodge called the Old Faithful Inn. This was really gorgeous because it was built using timber, and I think was the inspiration for the wilderness Lodge at Disney World.
We then went on the boardwalk, hiking all around the sort of upper geyser basin. We saw the beehive, geyser kind of sputtering, and we quickly realized that we were going to have another advantage point to see Old Faithful erupt again. We found a bench and funny enough, the people sitting on the bench were actually the exact people that were sitting next to us during the first eruption! This vantage point was great because the smoke or steam ended up blowing away from the geyser so we really could get a great view of everything
Next, we headed to grand prismatic Spring. On the way, we saw a loan buffalo just sitting in this yellow field by the river. We were able to get out of the car and stand on the side of the road and get some really good pictures of him.
Then we headed first to the observation point along what was called the ferry trail. This gave us a vantage point looking over the the spring, which gave us a really good perspective of all the colors. The hike up was pretty boring kind of steep at the end, but definitely worth it for the view! It really gave us a better idea of just how enormous the main spring is seeing all of the tiny people on the boardwalk below.
Next, we headed to the boardwalk that took us around the Grand Prismatic Spring, and there were a couple of other smaller springs that we were able to see as well. It was really windy, and that made for a lot of the steam to be blowing sort of every which way. But we did find some good vantage points where we could really get some exciting pictures with all the really beautiful rainbow colors, and the rusty sort of burnt edge to it.
After that, we did a little side road which took us through a canyon by a river on our way out of the park. We didn’t want to stay too late today because we needed to check into our campground and grab some dinner, so we worked our way through West Yellowstone into the campground. It was a little less glamorous than we were expecting! It turns out it’s the end of season for them and this is actually the last week that the camp is even going to be available for booking. We have tent number five, which is tucked back into some trees, making it sort of private. The bathrooms were actually porta-potty type of structures, which is a little bit different than the picture that we saw online, but they still work. But…. as I was using the bathroom late at night, the main camp lady was locking up the shower stalls and she told Mark that they didn’t get their water delivery so they were going to have no water for showers this week. Being that we’re staying there for three nights, that really wasn’t ideal. Luckily we have baby wipes but still!!
We grabbed some Mexican dinner and decided to try to go to bed early-ish since we weren’t sure how the night was going to go. The weather was dipping down into the 30s and we only had a propane heater that would last for four hours. Before bed, we went out into the big field near the tents and did some stargazing. We saw another shooting star, making it three nights in a row! We loaded up with just about every layer that we could and got under the covers and actually didn’t sleep too bad, all things considered.
