Day 7-Road Trip to Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Park

So, we woke up this day to wet everything since it rained the night before. We decided to pack up and go ahead and head out to Yellowstone. We first pulled everything out of the tent. We then broke down the tent and ended up having to put everything in garbage bags since it was soaked. We headed to the general store to get some coffee and hot chocolate and then headed out on the road to Yellowstone. A pic from our drive.

We drove to Madison campground since that is where we would be staying the first two nights in the park. When we went to check into our campsite, we were told the previous occupants hadn't left yet. It was sorta annoying because we really wanted to get our tent pitched so it could dry. We went to the nearby picnic area and ate some PB&J sandwiches.

We were finally able to check in around noon. The campground is very open, so not much privacy, but it was nice. As we were pitching the tent, Kelly went "It's behind you!!" It was a bison that had ambled up to the campground across the way and it was the first bison we had seen on the trip. Here are some pics of it.

Did you know that bison are actually more dangerous than bears in the park? They injure more visitors each year. They may look calm and slow, but they aren't.

We decided to check out the area south of Madison and down to Old Faithful. The first thing we did was drive down Firehole Canyon Drive. It was a really pretty little canyon. Kelly spotted a cave at the base of the canyon. We determined that it had bones in it after looking at it with our binoculars. Some pics of that.

We continued our drive south and came across several geothermal features along the way. See all the pics below.

Bacteria that can withstand high temperatures form mats on the geothermal features. The bacteria from these mats are where Taq polymerase comes from (for all you bio nerds)

According to this sign, which was written in several languages, you shouldn't step on geysers.

A waterfall spotted on the side of a mountain as we drove around.

An adorable ground squirrel.

Yellowstone has a huge caldera underneath it, which causes it to be so geothermically active.

We eventually made it to the Old Faithful area. It was packed. It was sprinkling on and off all day, but we decided to hike up to the Observation Point. We were almost to the top when it started to hail. It wasn't very big, but it was still cold and wet. We went to the top, looked around, and immediately headed back down. Some pics of that.

We looked at a few more geysers in the area (seen below) but decided to stop and wait for Old Faithful to erupt.

Old Faithful erupts approximately every 90 minutes. And here is the big eruption.

That's it. We left, but only to head to the gift shop to give traffic some time to thin out. It was packed there too. We finally headed back to camp. The weather had cleared up for us to make some dinner. It was mac and cheese and hot dogs. We also made s'mores, yummo. We headed to bed about 9:30 that night.

Next up, we visit the hike springs and do a hike to Grizzly Lake.