Today we celebrated Lindsey’s 12th birthday in Yellowstone National Park. Much to her chagrin and frequent requests we did not go horseback riding today. Instead, we got up early to drive around Yellowstone in search of wildlife. During our day we did see some pronghorns, male deer, bison and male elk.
After our wildlife search we returned to Mammoth Hot Springs to see the springs and the results of the decades of spring activity. From there we traveled to the Norris Geyser Basin to see the Constant Geyser and happened to be there when the Whirligig Geyser went off. We also walked down to the Steamboat Geyser which the largest geyser in the world when it does go off (up to 300 feet), even larger than Old Faithful , but not as regular. It is hard to believe that a large portion of Yellowstone is the old top of a volcano, hence all of the thermal features.
In an effort to take a break from our Yellowstone driving and to add an additional state to our trip we decided to head out the west gate of Yellowstone and have lunch in West Yellowstone, Montana. We found a nice BBQ place, did some tourist shopping and found an excellent ice cream shack, The City Creamery. This little shack makes its own ice cream right on site (they had a batch turning right next to the shack). It was delicious, hard ice cream that tasted delicious and did not melt quickly. I highly recommend the double chocolate orange!
The final stop for the day was the Old Faithful area. We checked in to the Old Faithful Snow Lodge, the newest lodge in the park. Even though it was built in 1999 I think they still wanted you to have a rustic experience, so there is no air conditioning. The room was nice, but the small window in the room and the oscillating fan they provided did not cool the room off at night. You can see our experience at Old Faithful at http://youtu.be/S39kfuTEKO8.
To celebrate Lindsey’s birthday we went for dinner at the Old Faithful Inn. We had a very enjoyable and delicious meal complete with the wait staff singing their own version of the happy birthday song to Lindsey. With my dinner I enjoyed a tasty beer: Moose Drool Brown Ale. Amazingly, Kelsey was thrilled to finally get a glass of skim milk.
Hammond Adventures 