Sunday, July 3rd Day trip to Old Faithful

We halfway slept in this morning until about 8, then decided to take a day trip on into the park and just go to Old Faithful...  We did visit here back on the 2007 trip, but it was later in the day, and it was very cold on our visit that day. 

We had to take our time driving in, due to traffic jams for wild life, but got to the gyser at around noon, just about 10 minutes before a predicted eruption, and we got a perfect seat to see the blow off!  Much better show this time than last time...  Brandon took an excellent video. 

We stopped at a couple of beautiful thermal spring areas on the way back to West Yellowstone, areas we had not visited before.  Wow, are the colors beautiful.

 There were about 3000 people there for the show...  Today and tomorrow are the busiest days of the whole year for the park, a ranger said.  Believe that, we stood on line for 27 minutes waiting to place our order at the Grille... 

I can't adequately describe the hue of blue that these springs are... the steam coming off was hot, hot, hot! 

Brandon has gotten a little blase about Bison...  this is actually a long range shot from the car, during one of the several wild animal jams on the road today.  We also stopped and shot a large herd of moose ladies. 

Tomorrow, we will rest and then do several planned 4th of July activities in West Yellowstone-  There's a parade, a rodeo, a big bar b que, and then fireworks here at the lake at 10 pm. 

Tuesday, Brandon and I are doing the big loop trip on down to the Southern part of the park, then on down to Grand Teton National Park, and the Rockefeller Parkway also.  May or may not go all the way down to Jackson- have to see how we feel-  That has the potential to be a 250 mile jaunt for the day.......