Sunday September 17th
I left the campground fairly early to drive an hour or so to First Baptist Church in West Yellowstone, having a quick look at one of the nearby canyon waterfalls on the way. It was another beautiful day. Coming out of the park, I could see long lines of people waiting to get in. It looked as though getting there at midday on Saturday had saved me a lot of waiting. The church was a pretty one, with a white spire. The congregation were very friendly and affectionate, as friendly as any I’d met. They invited guests to introduce themselves during the early part of the service.
The pastor was quite old, with a long white beard, and sat on a chair to preach as I recall. He preached a good sermon. Afterwards, I talked with some of the congregation. A group of people were going to eat at a restaurant they went to every Sunday at lunchtime, and invited me. I went and ate with them, and finally had a buffalo burger, which I had been wanting to try for a while.
It was nice, though I didn’t think it tasted much different from a normal burger. After the meal, the waitress took everyone's credit cards off and processed them, then came back with the credit cards and paper receipts. We had to calculate a tip and write it on the receipt and leave it there. I was a bit concerned I would miscalculate and give too small a tip!
From there I drove back into the park, to do the lower loop. It was quick to get into the park again in the middle of the day. There were two huge loop roads, and I had done the upper loop the previous day. My route went back through Madison, so I checked into the campground as I went by. This was a much smaller affair than the Canyon one, with less facilities. It was nice though, with quite a lot of trees growing through it. There were a couple of people ahead of me, but I got checked in, and found my spot.
I kept going, back through Canyon, and I had a quick look at the falls and canyon in brighter light. From there I started the lower loop, the first destination being Yellowstone Lake. On the way I was able to spot some bison feeding in the distance.
It was a large lake, and a lovely sight in the sunshine. The road went around the edge of it for some time, before coming to West Thumb. There was an area there with more colourful steaming pools, right on the shore of the lake. There were even a few of what looked like rock pools, right in the shallow water of the lake itself, with water boiling the whole time.
Crossing the Continental Divide, the road peaked again at about 8,300 feet on the way to the famous Old Faithful geyser. There was an overpass off the road, and a huge parking lot. Clearly a lot of cars sometimes came this way! The car park wasn’t too crowded, and I was trying to find out how to actually get to the geyser itself. I found out to my sorrow that I had just missed an eruption. I just saw the tail end, as a small geyser was slowly dissipating. They were able to predict approximately when the next one would be, and it was just on sunset. I debated whether to stay around for it, but it would have involved driving back in the dusk or dark, which people had recommended against due to the risk of hitting wandering animals.
I did a bit of a walk around the area around the geyser, looking at some of the other smaller features. It was pretty in the late light, with steam coming from a lot of places. The Old Faithful Lodge, next to the main geyser, was a large wooden building, with an impressive fireplace inside, and a cafeteria and shops, some of which were closed at that hour.
Reluctantly I left, to head to the campground at Madison before dark. Along the way, I came on Grand Prismatic Springs. I’m not sure I had realised this was there, and had I known, I would have left Old Faithful a bit earlier. From a distance I could see a large amount of steam rising, lit by the last of the sunlight, and there was a steaming stream running into the river that went through there. It was an amazing place, with walkways over large expanses of shallow steaming water, some of it very colourful. The colours weren’t as striking near sunset, but it was amazing to see the sunset reflecting on the water, with the steam everywhere.
On the way to Madison, the car ahead of me slowed right down, and I did too, and there was a huge bison, right next to the road! I got to the campground safely, and made some dinner.
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