Vacation '08, day 5

Up and about today! We are staying, as I mentioned earlier, in one of the little cabins behind the Lake hotel. There's a few dozen of them, all identical, and they are quite tiny... just a room that hold two double beds and a sliver of a bathroom in the back. No teevee, no phones. The kids find it difficult to believe that people used to live like this, but Mike & I are loving the quiet.

The hotel, painted the same shade of yellow, is a early-1900's beauty that has been restored to its former elegance. I can imagine carriages pulling up to the porte-cochère and discharging vacationers in Edwardian dress, or perhaps some interbellum swells conversing in the sunroom.

We get in the car and zip down to Fishing Bridge, the nearest store & gas station. The morning has been cold and gloomy, but now, actual SNOW begins to fall. Let me repeat: there is SNOW falling during our SUMMER VACATION. Fortunately, there's not much of it, and it's a wet, heavy snow that melts almost immediately. It's not sticking to the roads, so driving isn't affected much.

Today we'll explore the Canyon area of the park. The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, north of the lake, is a river gorge carved by the Yellowstone River through some of the softer volcanic material in this region. We've signed up for one of the bus tours... they are conducted in vintage 1930's-era buses with rolltop canvas roofs that have been rebuilt and put back into service just in the past year or so. Our driver is J.D., a fellow who personifies the tour-guide requirements of being friendly, gregarious, and full of interesting stories. Since the distinctive buses are frequently the subject of photos, J.D. instructs us to smile & wave whenever we see someone snapping a picture. ("You'll end up in some other folk's vacation pictures that way!")

We tour some of the thermal features in the Canyon. This is a cave-like geyser called the Dragon's Mouth. When it erupts, the hollow cave roars, and steam comes pouring out of the opening.

Phew! This mud volcano stinks of sulfur.

The snow has stopped, but it's still misty and drizzly. Regardless, the view of the Lower Falls is absolutely stunning. This is the famous falls painted by Thomas Moran, which (indirectly) led to the creation of the first National Park at Yellowstone. J.D. springs a pop quiz on Hunter: True or false, the Lower Falls is taller than the Statue of Liberty? (True. The falls are 308 feet high; Liberty on her pedestal stands 305 feet.)

Just to prove we are actually there, and I didn't just get the previous image off a postcard rack, here's another shot of the falls with Ali in the foreground.

Mike, of course, thinks the antique bus is the coolest. He talks J.D. into letting him sit in the driver's seat for a quick photo.

Critter count for today: The biggest traffic jam we see for the whole vacation is caused by a bear, of course. This is a mama grizzly and her cub. It's not a great photo -- they are about a quarter mile off, down in the valley, foraging for food, I guess. Swarms of people stop on the road to watch the creatures.

This little guy is a yellow-bellied marmot, who is sitting on the rocks just above the Upper Falls lookout. He looks quite nonchalant about the score of people taking his picture.

Driving back towards the lake, I happen to look up one of the dozens of little creeks that flow into the river and see a bald eagle, flying along the waterway, headed straight for us. "Honey! Stop the car!" The eagle flies right over us, then turns to parallel the road for a little ways before perching in a riverside pine. What a majestic animal.

Across from the hotel lies another breath-taking view of the lake. We walk around there a bit in the evening and have dinner at the lakeside grill. Another beautiful day; we'll be sad to leave Yellowstone tomorrow.