Cold and foggy today- 40 degrees.
Left for Park at 8:05 and entered the West Entrance.
On the drive to the Fountain Paint Pots we saw a herd of elk and a big horn sheep on the right side (south) of the bus in a field.
We arrived at the paint pots at 8:45am- parking lot very small. We had 45 mins to walk around and see the paint pots but it was hard to see the brilliant colors because of all the fog and some steam from the thermal waters.
On the bus at 9:20 for a short drive to Midway Geyser Basin. We had a hour to explore and see the large expanses of thermal waters by walking on the wooden boardwalk. Again, we had fog and when it cleared periodically we could see the bright blue thermal waters. In one area there were several baseball hats that were in the pools because the winds would blow the hats off the heads of visitors.
This was enough time to walk all around and see the pools and take photos.
10:45 a, Back on the bus and on the way to Old Faithful and when we were driving to the parking lot we saw Old Faithful erupt from the bus. We were told to be ready to leave at 1pm and that Old Faithful would erupt before then so we could see it up close.
The Lodge was surrounded by some gift stores, grocery store, and restaurants. We found out the next eruption was around 12:10 pm so we headed to the cafeteria to have an early lunch and then get seats for the eruption.
This turned out to be a good plan because Old Faithful erupted around 12:20 pm and everyone headed for the cafeteria afterwards. We had time to visit the lodge and walk around before we had to get on the bus.
There was enough to see here and to do that we could have spend several hours here.
We got back to the hotel around 2pm which gave us time to do our laundry and then take a walk downtown taking photos and shopping before dinner.
West Yellowstone Montana down town view
The plan was to visit West Thumb tomorrow since we have to pass by when we leave the park to go to Grand Tetons.
We had made reservations for Bullwinkle's and had a great dinner with blueberry pie for dessert.
Back to the hotel to rest and bed.
