Yellowstone Day 2

After spending the night freezing and awake listening to the mouse we were both in fairly sour moods. We hit the road on the way south to Old Faithful early on. Wildlife still filled both sides of the road. We pulled into the western entrance to drop the trailer and came across a massive buffalo sitting practically on the road. The thing didn't even move when we stoppped to snap these pictures of it.

Before we hit Old Faithful we had a chance to check out the rest of the hot springs in the area. They were really great. The colors of the water ranged from emerald to turqoise and the areas around the hot springs were cyan, yellow and green. These colors were being formed by millions of organisms that form clusters around the hot springs. The environment was once thought to be too inhospitable for living things, but recently it has been discovered that a variety of life calls this area home.

Back in the van and on down to Old Faithful. We pulled into the visitors center about 15 minutes before the next scheduled eruption. Besides having to sit next to the D&D club of Iowa it was a good experience. That group was playing the card game asshole, but calling it scum. I swear if they only had a couple of dice and a map they wouldn't have been any stranger. After listening to them for a few minutes we decided to get up and walk around the other side to where some normal looking people were sitting. Shortly thereafter the massive cloud of steam and water shot into the air. It lasted only around 30 seconds, but it was something to behold.

We visited the gift shop so Kristen could buy some postcards and as we were leaving we noticed this. Attached to the delivery truck was a pull behind camper. I can't figure out why someone would be driving that rig in five inch heels, but each to his/her own eh?

On the way back up through the park it was obvious that Kris and I didn't get enough sleep the night before. We were debating heading south into the Tetons, but a call to the local ranger station would not go through. Foreseeing another cold night out with the mouse was too much for us to handle. We decided to make for Chico hot springs and stay the night there. Chico is a hotel that has access to water from the hot springs. They fill pools and hot tubs with the water and also have rooms available...most of the time. After driving back the way we came for around an hour we pulled into Chico and noticed that for the first time during the trip there were actually people everywhere. Tired and bleary eyed Kristen went inside to procure a room, I tried to catch a few winks in the drivers seat. Ten minutes later Kris came back telling me there were no more rooms and we would have to look elsewhere. I drank a 5 hour evergy and fired up the rig.

We got as far as Livingston that night and paid for a room in a Super 8. Not exactly what we had in mind, but it would do. Before we left the van we set up four mouse traps with peanut butter, hoping to catch the vermin. Not knowing anything about town we decided to walk down to the "historic" district for dinner. I let Kris do the planning on this one and soon she had a place all picked out. We started walking and it started to rain. Around ten minutes into the walk I asked Kris how far were we walking, she replied that she didn't know. So here we were in Livingston, Montana walking blindly in the rain. Two miles later we entered the downtown area and began searching for the steakhouse. The food turned out to be fairly decent, beers on tap were good and the folks were friendly enough. The rain picked up again, harder this time, as we left downtown and headed home. By the time we were back at the hotel we were wet, cold and tired. I hit the bed and immediately fell asleep.