Day 13: Another lovely day in Yellowstone

We woke up in the Lake Hotel Annex, just in time to send Marta from our room to Billy and Jen's, where a subset of our crew was preparing to head out onto Lake Yellowstone for an early morning, fairly chilly fishing trip. Unfortunately, Marta suffered an injury to her toe as they prepared to leave, but I think her having caught a fish out on the lake helped ease the pain. Danny, Mary, and I found ourselves without cousins for a few hours that morning. It was a lazy morning, one that I welcomed after the get up and go that we usually need on this road trip. Also, we had the unique experience of having zero cell service of any kind from the moment we drove away from the Old Faithful Inn after dinner until about 11am, on the drive back to the Inn to meet Greg, Molly, and my parents (the non-fishers). It was then that my phone lit up with text messages from Jim first informing us about the Bruins' bummer loss the night before, then wondering whether we'd been eaten by bears. 

No bears today, but we did see an elk as we drove by!

The Old Faithful Inn is positively majestic. 

And a super cool benefit of hanging out there is seeing the geyser erupt as you get out of your car or walk to breakfast!

After meeting up with everyone, and hearing tall tales from the fishermen and women, we ate a quick lunch from the back of the cars and headed off on our day's touring which would take us around the west side of the Grand Loop Road, stopping wherever things looked neat. 

For example: Mary Mountain!

First neat stop: Gibbons Falls

Danny scales rocks

Cousins are the best

Next cool thing: Fountain Paint Pots

These pools and springs are unlike anything you see anywhere. It's so cool! One of those little pots splattered my sweatshirt as we watched. 

Then, when you look up and out at the horizon, you catch views like this!

Or, if you have vision like Jenny's, you can see elk hundreds of yards away, without needing the 200x zoom on your camera!

Next stop: The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone!

But not before Mary would fall asleep first...

Mom and Dad ran down to check out the Lower Falls of the Canyon while I stayed its Mary in the car and Danny took off with his cousins. When mom and dad returned a bit out of breath from the hike back up, I started running down the trail, camera in tow, doing my best to be polite as I scooted past people on the switchbacks. Wow, was it worth the effort!

And now, an ode to awesome iPhone pictures... 

And Dad snapped this one of another bison on the other side of the road (not an iPhone pic, though)

Finally, we drove back to the Lake Hotel to find a spot to eat a picnic dinner. It was very chilly, getting colder by the minute, so we went to the hotel and set up a picnic in the common area near our room. It was perfect! 

Molly, Emily, Danny, Mary, and I stayed in our room there (with 1 double bed... We are really good at fitting lots of people in tight spaces!) while the rest of the crew headed back toward Old Faithful for a stay at the "old part" of the Old Faithful Inn. Considering their shared bathroom situation and lack of phone, we were pleased to be cozy in our little room together. :)