Day 10 – Exploring South Western Yellowstone

In the morning we took our time getting out of bed. Heck this was the first 2 night stay anywhere and we were a bit exhausted. Besides it had rained a bit over night and we wanted that road to dry up some before attempting another crossing. So we went to see the view of the Grand Teton for which this hotel is famous…it was not disappointing!

After a stupidly expensive, park food breakfast, yuck, we went back to the room and inspected the mud on the bikes. Every car around us was up to the door handles in mud from that road. We had lucked out and gone through at a time when the mud only made it half way up my lowers. (My chaps and boots had a bit too).

About 10 am we decided to hit it. The weather was predicted to have a 40% chance of rain in the evening and we wanted to make it back before the rain due to the road construction. The road construction area was still a bit wet and muddy but for the most part had dried out enough to make it back across with one very nasty area. Succeeding in that crossing we headed off to see Old Faithful.

When we arrived at Old Faithful we found we were only minutes away from the next predicted eruption time. We had just enough time to take a picture of the meandering Buffalo that decided to walk across the area and got the crowd excited, and get seated for the show.

Funny thing was Bumblebee Geyser just off to the left of Old Faithful, a geyser that goes off only once a day randomly started to go off. Its eruption is higher and longer then Old Faithful. No more then a minute later Old Faithful went off! We were watching 2 shows at the same time. I guess we were just lucky to get there when we did. It was quite a show!

After Old Faithful we headed north on the Southwest portion of the Grand Loop road and followed some scenic side roads. I think my favorite was the one to Firehole Lake. We saw some very neat features on that route and met some very nice folks from Ohio. Just riding around we were able to see several more geysers both large and small, a few more bison, and a very pesky raven.

Due to a park road closure and the sheer size of Yellowstone we decided that we did not have time to go back to the features we had missed the precious day. (another 50 – 100 miles round trip) so we started to head back to the hotel. Stopping at a few more water falls but moving ever south to beat the rain we found the last crossing of the construction zone dry and much easier to manage. Tough I did see the truck used to water the road and keep the dust down…it made my heart skip a beat.

The rest of our evening was filled with doing laundry, having dinner, and uploading some pictures. Since the Hotel only has internet access in the main lodge area I just didn’t get enough time to write and upload the blogs for the last few days. I did spend my evening finishing up writing them though.

We decided that with construction resuming on that 6 mile stretch of icky road and with promised long delays due to that construction it was time to head south away from Yellowstone. Hopefully we will get back one day to finish the tour but for now it is better we move on.

A side note: During the ride back from Yellowstone to Jackson Lake we crossed the Continental Divide 3 times which got me thinking. I figured by the end of our trip we will have crossed the Divide at least 10 times and maybe up to 12 times! Seems I’m going to have to get my map out at some point and figure it out….