We had almost 4 more days left in Yellowstone so we planned to focus on a region each day. We planned to spend our first full day exploring the Geyser basins and Geothermal areas around old Faithful.
I woke up before everyone else and took a little walk around the geysers while I waited for everyone to go to breakfast. I found this to be a big benefit of staying in the Old Faithful area, lots of chances to see different geysers erupt. I watched Old Faithful with about 20 other people. Definitely the least crowded I ever saw it during an eruption. I loved the Blue Star Spring!
Once everyone was up, we had breakfast at the Obsidian Dining Room in the Snow Lodge. The buffet was was pretty minimal for the high price, so I ordered eggs benedict off the menu. It took a very long time to come and then came out wrong, so took even longer. Lesson learned, would not be ordering off the menu at breakfast any more.
We watched both Beehive and Old Faithful erupt and then headed over to Grand Prismatic Spring to try to beat the crowds a little. It was close to 10am when we arrived there, but it was already pretty crowded. We did manage to find a spot when someone left right in front of us. We were lucky! By the time we left the area the line to get in was very long and most were parking along the road. I was definitely glad we had a car and not an RV because there were VERY few RV spots.
Grand Prismatic Spring is huge! And so vibrant! My one wish was that we would have had time to hike up the short trail to the overlook to get a better view from above! I enjoyed reading the history of the Excelsior Geyser on the way in. That one must have been amazing back when it was more active! One note: this area smelled more strongly of sulfur than other areas. My son found that a bandana was handy. When the smell was too strong for him, he pulled it up over his face to mute the smell a bit.
We returned to the Upper Geyser Basin to have lunch at Old Faithful Cafeteria and explore. We saw Old Faithful erupt again and wandered the immediate area a bit. It was very hot and there is almost no shade around the Geyser basin so my husband and oldest son decided to go to the room to rest for a bit. My youngest and I continued to explore. We were able to see Grotto Geyser erupt and thought we might get to see Giant Geyser as it appeared to be active, but we did not get to see it. We did arrive at Grand Geyser in the middle of the predicted window. We got front row seats and hung out for a bit to try to see it. (Geysers are all about patience!). About 45 min later, we were rewarded with a truly beautiful eruption complete with a rainbow or two! It went on for quite awhile...about 12 minutes so it was definitely worth the wait. It also has two smaller geysers next to it that went off the entire time Grand erupted which added to the excitement! This was my favorite geyser by far! I ended up catching it 3 times over the week!
About this time we met back up with my 13 year old son and told him about Grand, he was anxious to see it so we returned later to try to see it again. We finished up with dinner at Obsidian. They don't take reservations in the summer, so we had to wait about an hour to get seated. If doing it again, I'd plan to eat at the cafeteria. The food was good but not worth the long wait. They really should take reservations for at least half their space in the evenings, in my opinion.
After a long hot day we were exhausted and slept very well! Day 5 held the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone so we needed the sleep!
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