Eclipse Trip: "Yellowbone"

…(as Teddy referred to it)…is such an amazing place. We love it, but when we visited there last year, I figured we probably wouldn't be back for a long time, since there are SO many cool places I want to visit even just here in the Western U.S., that there just isn't time for repeats! Except…that most places we go end up being so great that we WANT to repeat them. Sigh. Anyway, sometime last August, I looked at the calendar and realized that the total solar eclipse was finally coming up (in a year)! I had been looking forward to it for years, having always vowed I would see a total eclipse someday, and once I did some research I learned that the Snake River Valley in Idaho was a great place to see it!

So, I made reservations right then for a rental house in Island Park, and with Yellowstone being so close, we were delighted to realize that we WOULD have time for a repeat visit in the few days before the eclipse! Hooray!

When the time finally came, we were happy to have my mom with us on the trip too, and in addition to her devising all sorts of clever games to play with the kids in the back seats (thus keeping the arguments/fighting in the van to about 50% less than usual), it was fun to have her along because she could remind us what Yellowstone was like when she last visited, which was when I was about 4 years old. AND she was another pair of hands for the little ones to hold (the most popular pair of hands, naturally) which made the hiking much easier!

Sebastian said, "I think the worst thing about having a big family is having to stop at the bathroom so often." Yes, there was a lot of that.

Teddy seemed like a whole different boy on this trip! He was hiking under his own power (mostly), he was commenting on things, he was pointing out geysers…he has truly become an actual person during this year! (And I had forgotten until reading about it here…or perhaps repressed the memories…about how he SCREAMED nonstop while being carried in the backpack last year! And he was so HEAVY!) This year he was pleasant and darling and liked everything, and it was so fun to watch him taking it all in! Sebastian especially liked showing and telling Teddy about all the things we were doing, and then they'd reminisce about them as we drove home at night.

Because we'd been here so recently, and because everyone was warning about crowds and madness due to the eclipse, I thought maybe we should just skip Old Faithful and that whole area. But Sam thought it wouldn't be that bad, and he was right! We tried to get there fairly early in the morning, which helped. And there were crowded areas, but mostly later in the day, and really no worse than the crowds in the prime of summer season (end of June) we encountered last year.

Last year after seeing Old Faithful, we looked up the other "predictable" geysers (there are about five or six of them that have a fairly regular eruption schedule) and realized there was no way we could arrange to be in the right places at the right times to see them all. Some have a predicted time, "plus or minus six hours," and who has time to sit around and wait for that? We just assumed you had to get lucky to see any of them, or waste your whole day waiting.

But there are tons of cool things to see even when the geysers aren't erupting, so we started off around Upper Geyser Basin while we waited for the next Old Faithful eruption.

The Lion Group of geysers erupt frequently—we were happy to walk by while this one was erupting, and get sprayed with a lovely mist of water. (At least…I was happy. Teddy didn't want to get wet!) There was even a rainbow in the mist! It was lovely.

The weather was really nice for the most part—a little cooler than when we went at the end of June. Still hot at times, but not unbearable. I wouldn't have minded being sprayed by a few more geysers, though.

We found a good viewing spot and sat down to wait for Old Faithful, and then noticed a big crowd gathered some distance away, at another geyser, Castle Geyser. We kept our gaze going back and forth wondering which would erupt first. Abe said, "What will we do if they BOTH erupt at the same time? Where will we look?" Ha ha. A couple minutes later, Old Faithful began to erupt. It's so spectacular. That huge column of water and steam!

And then…while Old Faithful was still spraying…there went Castle Geyser too! Just like Abe said, we couldn't decide which way to look! And we were so surprised! I don't think they usually erupt at the same time?! So THAT was exciting.

And then, as we continued along the trail, we saw another big crowd of people waiting on benches near Grand Geyser. On the sign it said the eruption time "plus or minus two hours" or something, so it seemed really unlikely we'd catch it at the right time, but people were sitting and talking about it like it was going to happen soon, so we sat down and waited to see, and about five minutes later…

Grand Geyser erupted too! And it was spectacular! There are three openings the water shoots out of, and the roaring and hissing noise of the steam is so loud and rhythmic, like a steam train! It was amazing and we loved it!

I was particularly interested in the way the tiny water droplets sparkled and caught the light as they shot into the air. So powerful and beautiful!

We felt like surely we must be the luckiest people in the whole park that day, to see THREE big geysers erupting in the space of only a few minutes…and without even planning to! We marveled at it for the rest of the day! And we were SO glad we hadn't skipped the whole area! On our previous visit, I think the wildflowers and the mountain views were my favorite parts, but this time these three erupting geysers were my favorite!

My other favorite geyser in this area is Grotto Geyser, and although last year I said it looked like a troll or something, this year I realized with a jolt of recognition WHY I like it so much! It's because it looks exactly like this monster from one of our favorite books, The Monster and the Tailor:

The resemblance is uncanny, isn't it?

Earlier in the morning we had stopped at our old friend the "GPS" (as Seb still calls it—the Grand Prismatic Spring) and enjoyed the beautiful colors of the steam and the runoff beds nearby. I LOVE this area! But, you can't really get a sense of what it looks like when you're right up next to it. You need the aerial view, which you can get from the Fairy Falls trail. But last year we didn't ever get to hike that one, and Sebastian and I always felt bad about it.

So, this year, we were determined to see the GPS from above! It was getting hot, and we were tired, and Sam had to stay behind in the van and circle the parking lot because it was so crowded (which worked out okay since Teddy was asleep anyway)—but we found the right place and started up the trail!

It's not far, and the overlook is…spectacular! You just really have no idea how huge and colorful this spring is until you see it from this perspective! We were so happy we took the time to hike it. In fact, we went back to the car for Sam, and waited while he (and Seb, again) hiked up so he could see it too. It's not to be missed!

I posted SO many pictures of our last trip that I should probably restrain myself from repeating them all here, but I'll post a few more of the highlights. We had two full days in Yellowstone and we got to see a surprising amount in that time!

Goldie, Mom, and Daisy in Norris Geyser Basin. I love the milky blue water and the otherworldly feel of this area.

The wildflowers were really mostly gone—nothing like the huge fields of them I loved last year. But this meadow by a picnic area was pretty.