If your idea of a National Park is Jellystone, you need to put down the remote, forget Yogi and BooBoo and get to Wyoming.
Today we left Jackson, drove along the east side of the Tetons and into Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone was the first national park, founded in 1872. It has the “world’s largest collection of geysers”, including Old Faithful. We’re not sure they exactly collected the geysers; we think they were already there.
We did travel far enough into the park to see Old Faithful. Of course, no one else had that idea…
It’s called Old Faithful because it spouts every 91 minutes. Except when it doesn’t. Apparently it was more faithful in the past. We arrived around 1:30pm and found the visitor center around 1:50 or so. A sign told us the next eruption would happen at 2:37pm plus or minus ten minutes. And dang, it was late! When it did erupt, it was pretty cool, but some in the crowd were disappointed. We were surprised by how little sound it made.
And get this, the gift shop has absolutely no Yogi Bear items!
The Continental Divide cuts through Yellowstone. We crossed over it several times, generally at around 9,000 feet of elevation. From Boise to Yellowstone we basically followed the Snake River, going upstream. Leaving the park to the east we dropped about 5,000 or so feet into town of Cody.
Was this the first time you’ve been to Yellowstone? When I did my drive across the West in 1988, I had a room at the Inn there and when I opened the window, I could see Old Faithful erupting while I sal on my bed. It was so cool! But I think my favorite part was the paint pots. Did you get to see them?