Day 6 Total Eclipse in the Park

Day 6
Miles Driven - 345
Total Time in Transit - 18 hours
View - Squirting Water and Buffalos


Today is going to be a lot of pictures. A LOT of pictures.
Starting with us waking up at 4:00 a.m. in a desperate attempt to beat the mad rush of people swarming to Yellowstone National Park to see the eclipse. We had heard stories of how big the crowds were going to be.

4:00 a.m. Looking good.

Alex was super excited to go.

Tori, at least, was vertical.

We hopped in the car and raced off toward Yellowstone. As we drove, the temperature dropped. And dropped. And dropped. And the swarming crowds of people never appeared.

We drove up to the gates, paid without waiting behind a single car, and drove into the park.

"Hooray!" I cheered.
"Why did we have to get up so early?" everybody else groaned.

"This is why we got up so early," I lied. But it was an amazing sunrise in the park, overlooking a grassy field of grazing deer.

Did I mention how cold it was? No matter. We had coffee and blueberry muffins.

The four-legged beasites were uninterested in our muffins.

Yellowstone Park is basically (very basically) a big looping road that you can drive along, stopping at all the amazing spots along the way.

So we finished our muffins and drove on.

Our first stop was Firehole Falls which, while lovely, was completely fireless.

No fire at all.

This guy was just roaming along the side of the road. We offered him a ride and a cup of coffee, but he said he had breakfast plans already.

What I found fascinating was how quickly and thoroughly the terrain changed. It went from rocky hills to grassy flatlands to wooded forest in the span of just a few minutes of driving.

Geysers in the distance, a painting by Andrew Wyeth.

This is why Kerri isn't allowed to use my camera anymore.

"Phew. Alex, did you fart?"

For all the gorgeous photos you may have seen of the geysers in Yellowstone, what they don't tend to talk about is the smell.

It stinks like sulfur and old man poops.  Or, what I imagine old man poops to smell like.

I did enjoy the signage at the park.

But not as much as the scenery.

I have no idea why, but I am captivated by the glamor poses that Japanese tourists tend to adopt in their photos. This lady had her husband retake this picture 5 or 6 times.

Just your everyday dire warning.

More Japanese glamor shots!

This stick can serve as a warning to stay on the trail.

I loved the steaming ground.

Correction, steaming DANGEROUS ground.

I'm going to have to talk to my agent to find out why I never get jobs illustrating awesome stuff like this. The sister's reaction is priceless.

Tori and Kerri in their own action movie poster.

It's starting to get a bit more crowded. 

I cannot remember why I took this dude's picture. Let's pretend that I'm writing something really funny and poignant here.

I would not have wanted to work on building these long wooden paths over the pools of boiling acid.

And, when there is boiling acid, there is graffiti.

I think the same artist that was at Salem Sue was at Yellowstone!

And he was very busy, creating a vivid installation piece that explores the relationship of man and his environment.

A new geyser appears in the middle of the parking lot? Yay! A new attraction!

This, despite the sulfurous reek, was my favorite spot in Yellowstone. This pool was gorgeous.

If it weren't a bottomless death-pool of superheated acid, I'd love to swim in that, wouldn't you?
Cannonballlll! AAAAHAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Another gorgeous pool of doom.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, a photo series called "Thar She Blows!"

It was a lot of fun watching the geysers erupt.
We decided to settle into a spot and get ready for the day's big event, the eclipse.

We were supposed to be at about 98% of totality. Which sounds like a great name for Tori And Kerri's action movie.

How do we look?

Ready for the eclipse!

This is the spot we watched it from.

And, the other direction.

The thronging crowds of people never really materialized. We had a nearly private viewing of the eclipse.

We've been up for 7 hours and we STILL look good! 

It never got much darker than this, even at the peak of the eclipse. 

Just at the peak of the eclipse, a coyote wandered through the field about 50 yards away from us. He said that he had a breakfast date with a buffalo and was running a bit late.

The view at the height of the eclipse.

It didn't get dark, but the light got very strange. It seemed to be bright and dark at the same time.

After the eclipse, we headed to one of my bucket list items: Old Faithful!
Seeing it in so many Warner Brothers cartoons while growing up had made it seem pretty amazing.

And it was.

Almost as amazing as Old Faithful were the bear-resistant trash cans.

And the crowds!

We timed it just right so that as soon as we arrived...

So, naturally...

Geyser Selfie!

After the thrill of Old Faithful, we headed back to the van for the equal thrill of watching Alex work on his magical never-ending sandwich.

Day 3. Still going strong.

After lunch, we saw a huge plume of steam off in the distance and decided to explore. We made our way through the crowds of posing Japanese tourists and saw a really fantastic geyser.

Getting closer...

Castle Geyser. Eruptions are predicted within a 26 hour window. Not really too faithful, but really spectacular.

The crowd was impressed.

Mostly.

After Old Faithful, we spent a relaxing half an hour trying to find our way out of the parking lot (shut up, I was tired) and headed off to see what other wonders the park had in store for us.

A huge herd of buffalo. There were a lot of people here taking pictures, including a few fools who were getting VERY close to the animals. A ranger walked over and somebody pointed out the people who were too close and asked if he was going to go get them to move away. "I'm not going down there," the ranger said. "Are you crazy? Those buffalo are dangerous." 

This one was pretty cool, too.

It even made a gentle roaring sound.

Just 20 feet off the boardwalk along Dragon's Mouth Spring, a couple dozing buffalo, just waiting for a tasty tourist. Despite all the warning signs posted EVERYWHERE, people hopped the fence and went over for close up pictures. 

The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.

The dirty little secret THEY don't want you to know. It's all man-made!

Scenery.

Us, blocking the scenery.

We stopped at Norris Geyser Basin to see more geysers. Because, geysers.

There was a lovely view and an unholy stench.

Plus, excellent views of more scenery.

Eventually, we found ourselves at Mammoth Springs, near the North entrance where we would be leaving the park. It had been a LONG day with a lot of walking, but Tori really wanted to see Mammoth Springs. I hopped out with her and Alex and Kerri drove up to the top of the springs to pick us up.

Tori and me, blocking more scenery.

Mammoth Springs likes to eat hats, apparently.

Yummy hats!

When we saw that it also eats butterflies, we got nervous and hurried to get to the van.

We felt a bit safer when we were able to walk near this guy, who felt like he needed to carry a 24 inch machete along the wooden pathways.

No stupid water is going to take HIS hat.

We made it back to the van with our hats intact and our stomachs growling. Now we faced our biggest ordeal yet.

Dinner.

There are restaurants near the park entrance and we looked at several menus, but we found that they fell into two categories:

1. Skeevy pizza joints that charge $25 for a basket of deep fried wads of unknown origin.

2. High end snobby places that charge $25 for a crappy duck confit encrusted with pistachios and arugula in a demi-glaze of wild salmon sweat, served on a whipped cloud of elk fart.

And so we drove on, searching for food that wouldn't kill us or, at least , make us wish we were dead.

With our prospects dimming as mile after mile roared under the tires, we saw it: A lighthouse.

Really.

It was a restaurant called The Lighthouse.

It was plunked right in the middle of nowhere. How could we resist?

And when I was seated at this seat, the only one like it in the restaurant, I was sold.

Thank you all for joining me here tonight.

In Montana? Almost as far from the ocean as you can get in North America?
Yes. I will have the seafood.
It was quite lovely actually.

And, tucked away in the back room, they had this giant tank where, for a dollar, you could try to grab some living seafood with a claw. If you caught it, they would cook it for you.
Yes, really.
Sadly, it was out of order.

Full and exhausted, we made our way back to Bozeman and, after an 18 hour day, collapsed in our beds for a good night's sleep.

Until the train roared through.