early gysers and grand peeks

7/28 Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, and the Snake River

The morning went by in a slow manner and we packed up camp quite lazily. The day called for a drive to Cody in which we were to (hopefully) procure not-too-expensive lodgings before we hightailed it up to Yellowstone.

Hopeful, schmopeful, we got one of the last rooms in a swanky safari themed hotel complete with cuddly stuffed lion on the bed. Crazy. We simmered down on the crankiness and went to bed early so we could be up and out before the sun. It would take about two hours to get to the park and we wanted to see pretty not people.Even up as early as we are there were still all sorts of cars zipping here and there both TO and IN the park. We still took our time and moseyed about. We stopped for thermal vents, pretty flowers, a bison and a moose! We stood still and listened to bees and birds. I even used my pstyle on the side of the road and waved at a passing truck.Eventually we made our way to the visitor's center and the ever famous Old Faithful geyser. We lucked out and arrived about twenty minutes before the next "show". Old Faithful did not disappoint but we enjoyed the crowd's reaction a wee bit more than the geyser itself. Show over, we hitched up the cameras and adventure bag and took a walk along the path in search of other geysers and chromatic pools.While there were (was?) a good number of other people about, arriving when we did saved us from major traffic and people blues. While our fellow early risers camped out by Grand geyser, mr. a-go-go and I took a somewhat empty path and wandered for another mile or so. While traipsing across a wooden bridge, we stopped to watch the swallows and swifts. mr. a-go-go suddenly noticed the gaping open mouths of baby birdies peeking out from a knothole in one of the bridge's posts. I snuck in for a closer look and even caught a tiny bit on video. Like I mentioned before, we definitely lean towards being birding dorks.As luck would have it, we managed to hit Grotto not too long after it "erupted" and gazed upon it for about half an hour checking out its blurts and fizzes and shoots and steam. Grotto may be the oldest active geyser in the park, while Old Faithful can be quite showy and predictable, we think we enjoyed Grotto a bit more as it had a lot of character and grumbled about in a lackadaisical way. You can't really time it though but if you get it "just" right yer in for a treat! After we had our fill, we wandered back through passing Grand (which STILL had not blown), more people and the chromatic pools. Tired and weary we decided to pile back into Rodney to continue through the park.Upon seeing the number of cars all about, we decided to pass on exploring the rest of the park and continued on out to the south side of the park towards Shoshone. It was a good decision for us a-go-gos once we saw the long, long line of cars waiting to enter on our way out. We motored on out with a stop here and there to admire the Tetons, fuel up poor Rodney (and pick up more cheetos), and continue on to Idaho.