Rain, Rain, Go Away
This was the trip that made us grateful that we own raincoats. Very, very thankful!
Featured photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/SVpdppEQY88G2W6P6
September 3rd, 2023- Yellowstone Day 2
We awoke while the sky was still studded with rhinestone stars. The canvas of our covered wagon gently ripped with an early-morning breeze. The river bubbled calmly nearby. All was calm and still. Except for us. Still yawning (and very glad to not be bear breakfast), we crunched over the gravel driveway as we hauled our suitcases back to the car. I was shivering. It was chilly that morning, but I had the added disadvantage of being sick. Some mysterious illness had tracked me down a few days before we left for Yellowstone. Having already paid for all of our tickets, I wasn’t about to cancel the trip! Besides, Tyler had gotten sick on a few of our trips before and he always toughed it out. If he could do it, so could I. So I shivered a bit more, took a Dayquil, and off we went.
A watercolor sunrise was painting the sky as we arrived at Old Faithful. Soft yellow clouds wrapped around a crystal blue sky. Steam drifted across the entire landscape, lazily rising out of countless geothermal features. Just where the trees met the sky, a short chunk of a rainbow coalesced out of the steam. With only a handful of people on the boardwalk, it felt like a private masterpiece God had made just for us.
Old Faithful looked like someone had buried a steam train underground. She was puffing out steam mightily, but it didn’t seem like she was ready to blow. After meandering for a bit, we decided to take a stroll. We’d be back for Old Faithful.
It’s easy to underestimate just how much there is to see at Yellowstone. Following a map I’d downloaded, we walked and walked and walked. Steam billowed around us. Mirror-like pools and puddles reflected the sky in miniature. Countless geysers sputtered and bubbled. It was fascinating!
Because we had arrived so early to the park, we had scored a really good parking spot near Old Faithful. Deciding we didn’t want to lose that spot at any cost, we decided to hike (rather than drive) up to Biscuit Basin. The geysers at Biscuit Basin are only a few minutes up the road from Old Faithful. However, getting there would have required us to sacrifice our parking spot in hopes of finding one at the (much smaller) Biscuit Basin lot. We knew it was all too common for people to circle Yellowstone parking lots for a long time, hours even. We also knew that we didn’t want to be a parking lot vulture. The time would be better spent on the trail. It was worth it! By the time we’d returned from Biscuit Basin and had circled back to Old Faithful, we’d done about seven miles. We had seen lots of neat geothermal features, an interesting man wearing a skirt and crocs, and a sleepy bison. We had also been rained on at least twice. The heavy downpours alone made us grateful that we had parked close!
The chilly rain also made us grateful for a 12 o’clock tour we had booked at the Old Faithful Inn. The warm air of the massive log structure embraced us as we entered its medieval doors. Immediately, we were awestruck. Looking much more impressive than the Lincoln Log structures I built as a kid, the Old Faithful Inn is constructed entirely out of the same lodgepole pines that still surround it today. Despite being built in 1904, the structure stands resilient, unshaken by Old Faithful’s eruptions that occur just a few hundred yards away. Our tour guide was a lovely older woman named Ruth. She was from Kansas, but migrated to the park every summer simply because she loved her job. Her passion for the area was immediately evident. Even the deep emerald green of her blouse held the same shade as a thermal pool I’d seen earlier that day. Ruth’s tour of the inn was rich with history. We learned so many things! The logs inside the lodge, for example, still hold bits of their original weather-worn bark. When the inn was constructed, the designer, Robert Reamer, wanted it to retain the look of a forest as much as possible. He wanted guests’ experience in nature to have a seamless transition into the lodge. He took the forest theme so far, in fact, that he even added a treehouse up in the rafters! I would like to imagine Robert Reamer had a bit of a childlike imagination. With its castle-like peaked roof, branched support pillars for each floor, and hidden treehouse in the rafters, the Old Faithful Inn is certainly not a building to forget!
With minds full of wonder and history, we wandered back out into the grey drizzle to catch Old Faithful’s next eruption. We claimed our place on a bench just before the crowds got heavy. Poncho-clad tourists rustled like trash bags as we waited patiently in the rain, staring at the misty cloud of steam billowing from the hole in the ground. Occasionally, the geyser would send up some bursts of water to keep us in suspense. Old Faithful knows how to flirt with a crowd, that’s for sure. After about 15 minutes of sporadic bursts and lots of steam, the crowd was on tenterhooks. As if Old Faithful was a prize thoroughbred at the races, everyone started clapping and cheering, just to root her on! Tyler turned to me and asked, “Why are we cheering on a geyser?” It was a great question, and I had no reasonable answer. So I just shrugged and kept clapping! Old Faithful eventually did erupt, and it was majestic. She was worth the wait!
When we finally gave up our prime parking spot, the Grand Prismatic spring was our next destination. Just a PSA for our friends who may be considering a Yellowstone trip: there is very little phone reception in the park, and the park signs can be less than helpful at times! In this particular instance, we went to the totally wrong trail. I had picked the iconic Grand Prismatic overlook on our itinerary, but with no signal, we had no way of loading the map when we got in the car. Before anyone asks, “Why didn’t you use a paper map, you Gen Z’er?”, I have a reasonable explanation. Like the park signs, the park map we’d picked up was strangely vague. There was a number of areas in the park that simply weren’t marked on the map. Grand Prismatic was one of them. We made an educated guess, but our inadequate map steered us wrong. We ended up on a completely different trail, where we walked the boardwalk and returned to the car disappointed.
If I’m entirely honest, I was pretty bummed. I had been looking forward to Grand Prismatic for weeks. After all, how often do you get to see the dragon’s eye of a volcanic hot spring staring up from the steaming earth? Certainly never in Ohio. I stared dejectedly at our map while rain pattered the car windows. I thought about all of the National Geographic pictures I’d drooled over all month. It was a downtrodden moment. Fortunately, my husband doesn’t give up as quickly as me! He gently pulled the map from my hands, looked at it for a few moments, then started the car.
“Where are we going?” I asked him.
“To go find your overlook.”
The moral of this Yellowstone story is that everyone should marry a spouse who’s willing to drive down unmarked side roads to go see a colorful hot spring. In an ideal world, that spouse should also be willing to dodge sketchy drivers in parking lots, hike up to the hot spring overlook in a downpour, and hold the umbrella so your eBay secondhand camera doesn’t get drenched.
Oh, and also, be sure to carry a good map.
Like so many of the stories on this blog, I conclude with the realization that I am so very blessed. I can’t help but smile as I write this. God’s given me such a wonderful husband, and I love the stories that we write together. Here’s to all of the adventures we’ll have in the future!
Hiking trails and places of interest:
The Upper Geyser Basin (the big boardwalk loop near/around Old Faithful)
Biscuit Basin
Fairy Falls trail (this is the Grand Prismatic Overlook!)
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