Yellowstone in One Day-Not Recommended for the Slow Natured at Heart

How lucky can we humans be in this day and age to have the ability to visit acres and acres of gorgeous scenery in one day! Don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating it, as I would have liked to stay for days in order to fully learn and appreciate the environment. But with our cars and high speed cameras, we are able to sight see a lot in the span of twelve hours! 

At a fork in the visitor central trail system, there is a path through nearby woodlands that leads to a high viewpoint overlooking Old Faithful. This is Geyser Hill where we caught the one more eruption of Old Faithful from a high vantage point.  The new Old Faithful Visitor Center is directly behind the geyser, the lodge is to the right. 

Our visit was timed just about right considering we only had this day. There was a little snow storm coming and as such the Park Service had made the announcement that all roads would be closed as of November 8. This morning had started out stunningly blue, as the day wore on, the clouds closed in and by night fall we knew we had to get out of the park and find a place to hunker down. 

Our drive out the west entrance was just as exciting at the ride in from the east. More mountains, buffalo, and elk, and sumptuous creek beds all made for a nice exit. 

Sadly, we did not go to Mammoth on this trip. Just leaves a reason to stop in again on our way back to Kansas to retrieve more of our belongings. 

With the closing of the park to automobiles, the east and west entrances were ghost towns at this time of year. Amazingly, the entrances are not flanked by huge cities. They are very small communities keeping the park low key. As I mentioned before, some of my relatives spent a lot of time growing up in the western states. They were there from the 1800's through the 1960's. The picture below reminds me of looking at my grandfather's photo albums. His mother had a Kodak Brownie and that got him hooked on photography (and his work at Eastman) and he got me hooked. Grandpa narrated his photo albums to me whenever he had a chance. The photos were aged just so and full of history. When I view my photo in this style, I can imagine Yellowstone the way he would have seen it when he and his mother photographed and painted the west. (only after taking the photo, grandpa would have taken the elk for dinner! A necessity in the early part of the 20th century.)

The relatively low lack of development is a nice observation for an eco-conscience person, however, for a person looking for a place to sleep, its a challenge. Like with eastern Wyoming, even the RV parks are closing up for winter. As such, we kept driving to Idaho Falls. Another family memory is Uncle Andy saying he would have been traveling this area on foot with a bed roll on his back. Then he'd just plop down anywhere he wanted to rest!  We're such poofs!