Driving around the Lower Loop of Yellowstone Park

Tuesday - August 20, 2013

Good morning!  We wake up bright and early Tuesday morning eager to get on the road.  Well...early for us.  We wake around 8 am (and on vacation, that's PLENTY early) then hurry to get ready.  My big plan for the day?  Formed the night before as I was studying the guide?  Do the lower loop!  That means we needs to haul ass to get to the Canyon area early before the big busloads of crazy ass loud people (I'm looking at you, loud ass tourists from China rocking Gucci fanny packs with DSLRs that none of you know how to use) invade the space and our pictures look like a convention of crazy loud Chinese people.  (I know, I know, I hate my own people so.)

For breakfast?  (I was wolfing it down, and didn't think to take a photo of it since I was preoccupied with beating the savage hordes to the sights) - garlic toast!  Yes, I agree, my mama is magic.  Actually, we purchased frozen garlic toast when we were in Billings and my mama toasted it in our pot and hot plate because she's awesome.  We never visited the cafeterias in the mornings because we didn't want to deal with the crowds and my parents didn't want scrambled eggs or hash browns for breakfast - so we had equipped ourselves with sesame bread, garlic toast, and jam and PB for quick breakfasts before we hit the road.  We filled up on coffee, then each filled up our water bottles (with ice and juice.  Duh) before we went outside and literally covered ourselves in deet.  At least it smelled fruity.  And since it was only 15%, I'm hoping if I give birth one day I won't have some kind of freaky mutant child.

Once we were liberally doused in toxic chemicals (but none of us got bitten!  victory!) we got into the car, blasted the a/c (we could feel the humidity already) and hit the road.  Yeah!  (can you hear ACDC's Highway to Hell about now?) except uh...once we got to Hayden Valley (we were heading north towards Canyon) we saw this:

Okay then.  Two days in a row, which was quite a nice treat.  It was awesome especially since we saw this by chance, there were people who literally have been sitting there since 6 am hoping to glimpse wildlife.  And while these people may have seen the wolves and elk and bear, I could see those in the zoo and felt no need to get up at 5 am on vacation to sit my ass in the cold, cold car hoping to see animals yet also praying they don't come close enough to maul the rental car.  My yen to commune with God's creatures was quite satisfied when we passed by multiple large (and smelly) bison.  We don't have those in Cali!  Also, my Bento, who had been acting lethargic and was shaking a bit - the magic smell of the bison (or its poop) perked him up and once again, his latent masculinity (sorry about the neutering Bento!) rushed to the fore and he sought to defend our small, lightweight Korean SUV from the evil, evil bison by barking like he wasn't a small, fat, lazy and indolent 10 year old shih tzu.  Hehehe.  My one regret?  I didn't film this.  I was too buy taking pictures of the big ass bison, but I wished I had film Bento's lone manly moment in his life of leisure.  Must be hard to be so loved and spoiled.  He lives such a tragic life.  

We make decent time and hit Canyon and even manage to get a decent parking spot. We debate as to what we can do with Bento - pets are not allowed more than 100 ft away from the parking lot, and we knew to see Lower Falls we'd exceed that boundary, but we weren't going to leave him in the car to roast either.  So we made the executive decision that he was coming off the car with us.  We put him in his harness, clipped him inside his doggy backpack and headed off towards Artist Point with him loaded in his little backpack, for once being used as a backpack.   

doesn't Raymond look like he's walking with great purpose?  (while wearing his fanny pack?)

Mr. Bento matches his bag!

The parking lot itself...just looks like a parking lot.  As we walk towards Artist Point, we're on a walkway surrounded by trees.  It isn't until there's a break in the trees that we can see the Canyon:

another awkward family selfie!

dad looks like he's contemplating deep thoughts

And then we see it!  What's apparently known as the money shot in Yellowstone (get your minds out of the gutter) - this is the iconic view that all photographers (on a non-hazy day) and aspiring and established artists depict.  It's also on posters and all that good stuff:

see??

tada!

dad totally blocking the entire view, but that's okay, we know where we are.  

I wish the day were clearer and not as hazy as it turned out since the photos, no matter what we did, came out kind of hazy and washed out.  Not romantic hazy and washed out - just...not as awesome as other photos I've seen hazy and washed out (sob!).  Regardless, it's still a beautiful spot in the park and I can see why it's so famous.  It also looked better in person than it does in the photos, which is why I'm sad that the photos can't depict just how gorgeous it was over there.  After we take a bunch of photos, we find a shaded place to sit for a moment...

That is, until a bus full of Chinese tourists inundate the area and we're forced to leave to prevent being lumped in with them and being taken for commies.  

We continue our drive and see the turn out for Upper Falls.  Apparently people become disappointed with Upper Falls after checking out Lower falls, but I still found it very pretty.  We left the Bento in the car this time and take some quick photos.  We also see a trail and decide to follow it for a little to see different parts of the canyon.  

see those people on the right next to the waterfall (in the red)?  That's where we went next!  It's the Brink of Upper Falls :)

Not wanting to wander too far into the wilderness (hah!  The road is paved...wilderness...pshh) we don't go very far, but we do follow the path enough that we can see the water starting to rush into Lower Falls, which the bottom picture doesn't depict very well, but that's what it is.  There's a big bend in the river between Upper and Lower Falls, like an S shape, which is why the two can never be photographed together other than aerial views.  

where the river rushes towards Lower Falls

aerial view of the two falls - courtesy of (or borrowed from) NPS showing why you can't see both at the same time 

We head back and encounter another busload of tourists!  Ahhh!  Then again, the first time we visited Yellowstone in 1998 we were the ones in those crazy big buses...people must have viewed us with dread then to. Muhahahaha.

As we continue to drive, we see a sign for "Brink of Upper Falls" which is exactly what it sounds like - it's the brink of Upper Falls.  This was one of my favorite spots in the park and I thought it was both beautiful and exhilarating to see the river rush toward you only to plunge over the cliff and pound into the rocks below.

water plunging!

this is literally the brink - as the water river begins its downward descent into the falls

After visiting the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, it was about 11:30 and we were starting to get a mite peckish.  Since we were so close to Canyon Village (gigantor with lots and lots of amenities) we decided to head there for a potty break and have an early lunch before the crowds descend.  Good call!

We wandered around Canyon Village (after parking in an appropriately shady spot for Mr. Bento) and ended up deciding on the cafeteria since they had a large variety of food so everyone could find something they want...or can tolerate as in the case of my parents.

huckleberry chicken and mashed potatoes (I stole some of the potatoes - they were surprisingly good)

Buffalo sloppy joe (Raymond like it - it tasted like regular sloppy joe to me)

my chicken pesto wrap - pretty tasty, and I could pretend to be healthy

fruit and cheese plate with yogurt

I wouldn't say it was the best food ever, but it was comparable to dorm food and decent.  It wasn't cheap, but not too expensive either.  We were lucky that we went in early because once we sat down and began to eat, the bus loads of tourists began coming in and the cafeteria ended up filling up very quickly.  

the buses in the parking lot - there were more when we left

After we finished lunch, my mama and I went to the general store and purchased  a few things before I found my way to the tiniest Post Office I'd ever seen.  It was in a trailer.  Seriously.  Oh well.  But I went there to mail off a postcard to my adopted airman and was amused at the size.

After mailing off my postcard, my mama and I headed to the new visitor's center to check it out.  It's very nice on the inside - it's a good place for a potty break FYI.  If you're eating in the Canyon area, don't go in the restaurants - it's crowded and small and kind of grody. Walk across the parking lot and come to the visitor's center.  New, large and clean.  Not to mention a pretty cool gift shop and awesome display of the geological history of the park.  It's a nice break on a hot day since they've got the a/c blasting here and a good respite from all the outdoorsy activity this park encourages (shudders). 

the Visitors and educational center - bright, airy and super new on the inside.

Full and sated from lunch, we march (or drive) onwards (well, west) on the Lower Loop.  The next big sight that appeals to us (we skipped a few...the ones that looked like you needed to do stuff like...hike) are the Artist Paint Pots.  Or maybe we stopped because the guidebook told us to and I love to follow guidebooks, I dunno. The point is, we stopped.  The little posted sign said it'd be a 1/3 mile walk to see the sights, so we found a shaded area, lowered the windows, and let Mr. Bento take his after lunch nap while we hoofed it over. IT WAS SOOOO HOT.  SO HOT.  Mr. Bento was lucky he got to snooze in the shade.  Fortunately, I brought my floppy hat that I purchased in Greece (that's right, I kept saying "see this hat?  I got it in Crete.  Not Target or the mall, GREECE."  And I am fully aware of how annoying that is) so even though it was holey (good for ventilation), it seriously kept me cool - it also kept my face from becoming burned like the rest of my body and kept me below boiling temperatures since my black haired head takes on the temperature of lava under the sun.  Oh, the joys of having dark hair!

So we hike...well, I don't know if it's a hike if it's all flat, but since it's a dirt path, I'm going to pretend we were really outdoorsy.  So we hike through what appears to be a Christmas tree forest (in my heat induced delusion I began fantasizing about which tree I wanted to take home to be my Christmas tree this year) for about 8-10 minutes.  We're not moving at a fast clip because we don't want to keel over from heat stroke.  We were also retarded and didn't bring our water bottles with us - they were safely guarded in the car by Bento.  Useless!  (water bottles, not Bento)

forest of Christmas trees!

After we exit Christmas tree forest, we see this:

well, sort of.  We see that, but it's surrounded by boardwalks which are not in this photo.  But same thing.  We look at the boardwalk that makes a big ass loop and figure we might as well do the whole thing while we're there.  Also, did I mention the boardwalk like goes up a freaking hill?  OMG.  

See?  boardwalks.  We walked it clockwise, but it didn't really matter which direction you went in.  

we are the victors!  we climbed to the top!  (or part of the way)

view from the top of the hill

funny steam vent thingy with red colored stuff flowing from it.  Probably water that's like, 500 degrees and the color is probably bacteria.  Doesn't it look like the earth is bleeding rusty blood?  (morbid much?)

awesome family photo at the top of the hill

Once we climb all the way to the top (tada!) we glance look around and take lots of photos to commemorate our rare outdoorsy climb.  Then we start looking at the features after we catch our breaths.

Oh, how do you describe the paint pots?  Well, I think my brother put it best when he said, "it smells like fart."  Yes grasshopper, it indeed smells like fart.  Being one of superior education (I have an extra year of grad school on him) with great refinement and sophistication, I embellish upon his observation.  "It smells like the devil farted" I reply.  Muy suave, si?  

Indeed, it does smell like the devil or the earth farted.  Not only that, but when you're standing next to a mud pot thingy, it not only smells like fart, it looks like fart (or shart, or diarrhea) and it sounds like fart (or severe indigestion being emptied into the toilet bowl).  I hope no one's eating as they're reading this, but that's seriously what it was like.  The paint pots are a display of the earth's flatulence, in smell, sight, and sound.  No wonder it's popular with families.  There were lots of kids there giggling. 

this one was very active, it was very bubbly and stinky and gurgly

same as above, up close so you can sort of see the bursting bubbles which my mama was obsessed with

A very nice family we ran into offered to take a photo of all of us, so this is one of the few photos we have that aren't awesome rocking selfies.

in front of the bubbly one...see all of our hats?  Yeah, mine was from Greece.

Despite the giggle inducing thermal features, looking out towards the rest of the park (or what I presume to be the rest of the park, my geography is ass) also yields a pretty awesome view. 

So we head back down.  Of course, there are more thermal features to note as we walk down.

While walking down, Raymond and mama book it to make it back to the car because 1) Raymond has an allergy to the sun and 2) to see if Mr. Bento was okay (he was.  He was even cooler than we were, snoozing away quite happily and not too pleased at our disruption of his nap).

dad and I walking back to the parking, but first, through the Christmas tree forest!

We get back to the car and promptly drink whatever we can get our hands on to stay hydrated.  SO THIRSTY!!!  We blast the a/c and try to cool off.  Southern California is hot,  but it's not humid like Wyoming is.  Also, I don't tend to spend that much time outdoors since I'm a civilized person who much prefers the comforts of air conditioning.  But it was while we were at the Artist Paint Pots that I realized that wearing a t-shirt under a blazing sun was not a good idea.  Why?  Because therein leads the way to a farmer's tan.  I have a deep passionate hatred for farmer's tans.  I'm not a farmer, but because I was misguided enough to wear a t-shirt, I ended up looking like I should be working on a rice paddy.  Oh, the tragedy.  I ended up being that dork who rolled up the sleeves of her t-shirt to avoid the tan, but it was too late, my arms had already taken up looking like they belonged in the cotton fields or plucking carrots or something (sob!).  Anyway, so we're blasting the a/c and driving along the Grand Loop Road when we see the Fountain Paint Pots lot full of cars.  We figure this has got to be a good thing to look at or otherwise, why are there so many people there???

leather pool as we drove by.  I dunno why it's called leather pool, it don't look like leather to me

So we get out - it's hot, it's HUMID, it's hot.  Blech.  Raymond is still suffering from the effects of jet lag, so he opts to find a shaded area to just chill with the dog.  My mama decides this is a good idea and joins Raymond and Bento while my dad and I abandon the party poopers behind to go exploring...along the boardwalk.  We ain't stupid, we don't want to step off the boardwalk and fall through the thin earthen crust into a pit of lava.  Do we look like morons to you?  (don't answer that)

Anyhoo, we decide to follow the boardwalk and take in the sights of the Fountain Paint Pots since we're there already.  I'm glad we did, because we saw the most active geyser in the park.  It was the one May told me to see when I went since she knew we were not patient people who were going to sit around for 4 hours to wait for a geyser.  Even after spending a few days in the park, I still don't know all the correct terminology for all the stuff we saw...let's just call them big ass pools of lava hot water.  Some in purty colors, some in not so purty colors.  

okay, I checked the internets.  Apparently it's called Leather Pool because the temperature supports this ugly brown leathery looking bacteria that live on the surface...though this was named Leather Pool before some big ass earthquake which raised the temperature of the pool to boiling point and killed off the ugly brown bacteria.  Now though, the temperature has lowered and the brown bacteria is growing on it again.  It just looked kinda dirty to me, not leathery at all.

After looking at crazy blue hot springs and funny looking steam vents and mud thingys that blow fart smells at us, we head towards the geyser portion of the tour.  Look!  It's Clepsydra!  While we were there, it was constantly erupting.  It wasn't super high like Old Faithful, but it kept going.  And I thought it was attacking me since while trying to get a photo of it, the steam kept coming towards me to attack me and most of my photos were just of fog and mist.  Also, the geyser water (which I sincerely hope is not acidic) would spray me and my camera (it was cooled by the time it reached me) so I'd have water spots all over the lens.  Yay.  While encapsulated the the steam, it seriously felt like I was in a stinky steam bath :)

Clepsydra on the right

do you see my futile efforts to avoid the farmer's tan?  This is before I was attacked by the steam

Isn't it pretty?  Do you want to see it mid-attack?

help!  help!

dizzying view of someone else's shoes mid-attack by Clepsydra geyser's steam

As we leave the attacking geyser portion behind, the land surrounding the boardwalk looks desolate and bleak.  Probably because the lava hot water has killed everything on it.  

my dad totally rocking his hat

We head back to the car to find Raymond, mom and Bento enjoying the bounties of air conditioning - ah, the joys of a rental - and we climb in and breathe the sweet, sweet ventilated air.  All the fresh air is killing me!

Continuing on in our journey, we stop at Biscuit Basin next because it also has a lot of cars, and since we are mindless lemmings, we figure if we go where there's people, you can't lose, right?  We find an awesomely sweet spot that's completely in the shade (okay, so it wasn't a spot, we just made it up, but it was in the shade and we parked there an no one ticketed us) and left Bento in the car with the windows down.  As we walk out towards the boardwalk we see this:

really?  Someone rented this?  Someone paid money to drive this around?

Biscuit  Basin is not named thus because there are delicious biscuits all over, but there were deposits that surrounded Sapphire Pool that looked like biscuits.  Unfortunately, there as a big ass earthquake in 1959 that was around 7.5 on the Richter scale, and days later, Sapphire Pool started erupting.  Yeah...those eruptions blasted away those biscuit thingys but the place is still called Biscuit Basin even though there's nothing that resembles any biscuits whatsoever.   

Firehole River

Sapphire Pool. Yes, this is one of the two whose names I actually know.  Because it's Sapphire.  Duh.

I didn't catch the eruption of Shell Spring, but you can see the water levels receding from a gurgling level to completely dry.  Of course, the water and pressure just transferred elsewhere causing an eruption somewhere else in the basin.  

lower...

all gone!

I don't remember the name, I kept waiting for this one to erupt, but all it did was gurgle a bit.  Hmm...

see?  gurgling...or a minor eruption

I think this was Jewel Geyser (hell, it could've been Mustard Springs), but I may be talking out of my ass

We see little eruptions, mid-sized eruptions, and all sorts of colors.  At this point we're kinda tired and don't want to be in the sun anymore (because we're wussies.  The sun is pretty much only good when you're at the beach. Preferably in Hawaii) so we decide after a loop that we're just not into waiting around for little eruptions and should head to Old Faithful.

So onward to Old Faithful we go.  Apparently, our arrival is ill-time (being that we have no reception, we have no idea when O.F is scheduled to go off, we just arrive whenever we feel like it) since the lot is CRAZY full of people. Yeah...just as we're walking towards O.F, we see it go on in the distance.  Crap.  But we park far, far, away...all the way by the general store and we cross the street towards the fringes of Old Faithful Village.  Even Bento takes part in the action.  See?

Raymond rocking the dog backpack...as a bjorn

this is what we see as we're walking towards Old Faithful.  When I say we, I mean my mom, who abandoned us and ran towards the geyser on her own while we moseyed on behind her.

And since my dad has never been here before, of course we need to take a photo of him with Old Faithful.

Bento too.  He's never been here, so he's got to get a photo too.  

We've arrived!  And there's no more eruptions!  Ahhhh!

The place is crowded, but as the eruption ends, people clear out in a horde.  We sit around and try to decide if we want to stay for the next eruption which is in roughly an hour and 10-15 minutes.  I vote to wait because 1) my dad has never seen it before since this is his first visit; 2) I'm tired and want to sit down; 3) Old Faithful Village actually has cell reception and my cell is going crazy pinging all over the place with emails and text messages flooding in and I'm starved for civilization after ONE AND A HALF DAYS without reception (oh, the pain!  the pain!); AND 4) I want huckleberry ice cream from the cafeteria.  Yeah...it's just that simple.  So we wait.  Since Bento is not allowed on the boardwalk (doggist bastards!) we sit on the logs...which was awesome because it was in the shade.  I do love me some shade.  Particularly when there's ice cream and internet access involved.  As there was over an hour to wait, the place emptied out and we had our choice of logs. We moved from place to place before we found a location that was sufficiently comfortable on the butt, had good shade, and had a good view when the geyser blew.  

waiting...

an hour later, we're getting close!

our spot

Once it blew, it was cooler than I remembered.  Granted, I last saw it in 1998, but I was less than impressed at the time.  While I wasn't in awe or anything, it was still a pretty cool sight to see.  Also, not seeing Old Faithful when you visit Yellowstone is like not visiting the Eiffel Tower when in Paris.  

we were busy trying to capture photos of the eruption, but my mama wanted to memorialize this and kept telling us to turn around so she could take photos of us.

After it was over, it was a great exodus towards the parking lot(s).  We were part of the horde of people leaving - but first, we had to get gas.  And buy more beverages, and since Old Faithful Village has multiple gas stations, we filled up there before we drove to Lake Village.

As we were driving back to Lake, the sky becomes overcast and it starts sprinkling...

which soon became rain and then it became kinda big rain.  By the time we got to our cabin it was raining pretty hard.  Good thing we were parked right in front of it because we would've gotten pretty soaked if we had to run more than the 8 feet we did.  

I'm generally not a fan of rain.  I don't like dirt or mud or congestion - but since we were already done for the day, I was quite happy to watch the rain from our snug (and dry) little cabin.  We lolled around while my mama made dinner and we emptied out our little cooler as we continued to eat through it like locusts.  I'm clearly retarded, but I didn't know you could make rice without a rice cooker.  I'm so ignorant - but  my mama busted out a pot of rice in a POT.  From a hot plate!  That's some mad skills right there.  

Like the country folk we were pretending to be, we hit the sack not too long after dinner since there wasn't a whole lot to do.  Also, we were tired.  Raymond and I watched the 2 episodes of Big Bang Theory I had downloaded onto my laptop and then we conked out.  We had planned to do the Upper Loop the next day, but due to road closures, we ended up modifying the route a bit and backtracked to some of the places we passed by the day before.