Thursday, July 3 - Hot Springs, Traffic Jams, and Geysers

Another fun-filled day in Yellowstone! We stayed the night in Gardiner, Montana, just next to the north entrance to Yellowstone, and Mammoth Hot Springs. So we started off our day seeing the hot springs, and getting exhausted climbing up and down the boardwalks that led to the springs.

From Mammoth Hot Springs we went to Norris Geyser Basin, and got our first glimpses of geysers. Steamboat Geyser is the world's tallest geyser when it has a major eruption, but it hasn't had one of those since 2005. We did see a number of minor eruptions at Steamboat, as well as some other geysers off in the distance.

We stopped for a picnic lunch and headed for Old Faithful. But we hit a traffic jam - a big one. We were idling, and moving very slowly, for about an hour. And when we got to the front, we saw the reason why. It was another Yellowstone Traffic Jam, caused by a herd of about eight bison who had decided to stroll down the middle of the road. Actually, stroll is not the right word. Meander might be more accurate. Or perhaps lollygag. Anyway, I've discovered that Yellowstone Traffic Jams are much more tolerable if you can actually see the animals causing the jam.

So we finally got to Old Faithful, just about 15 minutes before it was predicted to erupt. So we sat on the ring of wooden benches that surrounds it, and watched as it began to bubble and then erupt a huge plume of hot water and steam into the air. Then, just on the other side of the basin, another geyser began to erupt. And then a third, between Old Faithful and the second one. Three geysers were erupting together! It was a truly spectacular sight. This photo shows Old Faithful (front) and Lion (back) geysers erupting. Plume was the one that erupted in between the two, but my picture of that is not as good.

We're spending the night tonight in West Yellowstone, Montana, and on the way to here we saw some elk. It was a great end to a fabulous day.