On our third day, we woke up early and had breakfast at Under Canvas. It was a chilly morning, so we sat around the fire and looked out over the gorgeous view.
Then we headed towards Yellowstone National Park. We were driving through Yellowstone to Jackson, Wyoming and trying to hit as many big stops in Yellowstone as possible. We visited Mammoth Hot Springs yesterday, but it looked a little more active today so we quickly stopped and enjoyed the hot springs.
We love following the guide-along app when we travel to National Parks. He tells you about stops along your route. This was a quick stop to see some Basalt Columns.
We learned about the different types of geothermal activities in the park, fumaroles, geysers, mud pots and hot springs. This was the first time any of us had seen fumaroles. Fumaroles are vents in the Earth's crust that emit steam and volcanic gases.
From Mammoth Hot Springs we drove about 30 minutes to the Norris Geyser Basin portion of the park. It is the oldest and hottest hot springs in the park.
We walked the three mile boardwalk around the thermal area. It was a really pretty portion of the park. However, the kids were a little upset that the sulfur from the geothermal activity smelled like rotten eggs everywhere.
There was a buffalo right off the path just hanging out near the hot springs.
One of the coolest spots in the section is Steamboat Geyser. We didn't get to see it erupt, but it is the tallest active geyser in the world!
The green dragon steam vent was really cool to see in person too.
After exploring the Norris Geyser portion of the park, we drove 45 minutes to Grand Prismatic Spring. We did not have time to go up close to the Spring, but we hiked up about a mile to see it from above. Grand Prismatic Spring is the largest hot spring in the U.S. and third largest in the world. It was CROWDED!
After Grand Prismatic Spring, we drove to Old Faithful inn. We only snacked for lunch, so we were so hungry when we arrived. We put our names on the list to eat dinner in the Old Faithful Inn Dining Room and grabbed a huckleberry margarita on the roof to watch Old Faithful erupt. It was crowded on the deck, but was exactly what we needed after a really long day of hiking.
Then we ate dinner in the dining room and it was delicious and beautiful!
After dinner the kids grabbed an ice cream in The Bear Paw and we watched another eruption on the deck.
We had planned to walk around the Old Faithful area and see more of the geysers, but after so much hiking we were pretty worn out. So we decided to go ahead and head towards Grand Teton. We made one more stop at the West Thumb Geyser Basin area of the park. This was by far my favorite stop. It was pretty late, so we had the place mostly to ourselves and it was gorgeous on the water!
Cool to see a geyser in the water!
A beautiful elk was hanging out in the area.
Gorgeous!
Made one last stop before exiting the park at the Continental Divide.
We arrived in Grand Teton pretty late at night and checked into the Rustic Inn lodge. We were excited for the next portion of the trip.
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