After three nights of camping, we figured it was about time for showers, so we first headed to the Old Faithful Inn (I wasn't really eager to try the showers at the Fishing Bridge RV park...it looked a little dodgy and expensive for what we'd get). For anyone who's considering camping in Yellowstone and possibly concerned about the shower situation, the Old Faithful Inn was a great place to shower. It was inexpensive, you can buy soap and rent towels, and it was very clean and nice. For anyone visiting this area, regardless of whether you need a shower or intend to stay the night, at least take the trouble to go into the main lobby of this historic inn, as it is really something else. Check out my 360 panorama in Photosynth from the lobby:
Here's another way of viewing the lobby image:
Mike finished showering first and I found him out on the patio, sitting in the shade with a darn good view of Old Faithful. He got there just in time to see the eruption. I got there just as it ended. Oh well, I figured, I've seen it before and most likely will get to see it again...little did I know we'd spend all day waiting and watching geysers, including Old Faithful.
The boardwalk of the Upper Geyser Basin is jam-packed with geysers, and it seems like the only way you could miss seeing a single geyser eruption would require both bad luck and a super quick perusal.
Map of the Upper Geyser Basin from The American Southwest
We walked from Old Faithful to Castle Geyser, as Castle is one of the predictable large geysers, and I wanted to see what time we might get to see it (around 8 pm that day), and then up to Grand Geyser, another large predictable geyser. We got there right at the middle of the expected eruption window, sat and watched for a while, then got restless. We saw Sawmill, Penta, Spasmordic, and Grotto geysers erupting. I suspect during the two hours we decided to wait for Grand, we were also seeing the smaller eruptions of Turbine Geyser. 
Penta Geyser, Yellowstone National Park
And then, in the last two minutes of the predicted eruption window, Grand put on a show, spraying boiling water and steam to a height of 180-200 feet for 12 minutes. This fountain geyser looks much different from other geysers in it's eruption because of how it erupts from a pool, spraying water outward in addition to upward. Grand, the world's tallest predictable geyser, performs for a short time, then acts like it's done for about a minute, and then the water shoots out at it's peak.
Grand Geyser, Yellowstone National Park
Photo by Mike Boles
Grand Geyser, Yellowstone National Park
After Grand's eruption, it was two hours past lunchtime, so we headed off to find some food. After lunch, we went to the "new" welcome center (it's new since the last time I was at Yellowstone, 10 years ago, but I don't know when it was built). We watched an unremarkable introductory video, then felt better about our own abilities when it comes to creating motion media. They time the video to show about 10 minutes before an Old Faithful eruption, so we headed outside to watch. Once again, the geyser waited until the last couple of minutes of the eruption window.
We hurried off to the ranger talk beginning at Castle geyser, and enjoyed that. There was a lot of information given on that talk, though I think we'd already gathered some of it from the previous ranger talk and reading all the signage about individual thermal features. One thing that we got from this talk and nowhere else was why the arid landscape was littered with little mounds of grass...buffalo dung. Perfect picture of a cycle: buffalo eat grass, poop out unneeded nutrients, grass grows in the dung, buffalo eat the grass...
After the talk, it seemed time for dinner, but it was also nearing sunset and another Old Faithful eruption. There were some people sitting out on the benches, none over where the sunset could be seen behind the geyser. Instinctively, I thought, why not sit there with the sun in our eyes, yes, but when the geyser erupts we'll get a very different view of it than what you typically see. On every vacation I try to get at least one time-lapse of a sunrise, and at least one of a sunset. By this point I was 0 for 2. Why not find out what the sunset would look like behind an eruption. It meant missing Castle Geyser's eruption, but I think it was worth it:
Old Faithful, Yellowstone National Park
Old Faithful, Yellowstone National Park,
Photo by Mike Boles
Unfortunately, it's hard for photographs to really capture how interesting how the light was changing during this eruption, but typically before the sun hits the horizon, it can be really hard to look directly at it without clouds or something blocking it. In this case, it was boiling water and hot steam. And it was really quite awesome.
Sidenote: If you are interested in any of my puzzle photos, I often get them printed in poster-size and would be happy to sell one to you. I have many more from other vacations and locations as well. Send me a note or post one here and we can chat. Perhaps I'll share more of the ones from previous trips in another blog.
Next up: Sunrise at Yellowstone, Grand Teton NP and a change in plans
This is a series on our 2011 trip. Here are the previous posts:
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