Yellowstone: Visitor Central

 We saved Old Faithful and Grand Prismatic Spring for Tuesday because we knew that if we were going to hit big crowds, these would be where it would happen. Sure enough, even on a Tuesday in mid-October, with visitor services already closing, there were still hundreds on hand for the roughly hourly eruption from the park's most famous site. 

We parked in the ocean-sized parking lot next to the visitor complex that includes the Old Faithful Inn, the Snow Lodge, a handful of food and souvenir places, and Old Faithful itself. With an hour or so to spare before the next "scheduled" eruption, we took the pleasant boardwalk tour of some other adjacent geothermal features.

When the time came, we found some comfortable front row seats and watched the show. And, it WAS really cool.

As cool as Old Faithful was, much to our surprise it was the next stop that gave us our daily highlight. On our way up to Grand Prismatic, we stopped by a relatively unheralded trail and happened on one of the most beautiful waterfalls we've ever seen, tucked back up in a picture perfect canyon.

The views were pretty much perfect in every way, and we had an absolutely lovely hike. And yes, that's Rachel sitting out on that rock. She's crazy.

The capstone of our day was to visit Grand Prismatic Spring, probably the second most recognizable feature of Yellowstone. And ... we couldn't even see it. The wind was blowing just right so that the amazing multi-colored pool was completely obscured. 

This was a pretty serious letdown, but by this point we'd pretty much hit our max for the day. It was time to go home and rest.

A note about West Yellowstone, the park's main gateway community. It is NOT a place to seek the comforts of city life - at least in the off-season. We tried twice to get take out food on our way back home. The first, we couldn't get anyone to pick up the phone. The second, we showed up to the find the restaurant closed. And, I don't mean "closed for the season" closed or covid closed. We just showed up on random Tuesday when, according to a paper sign on the front door, they decided to close!

Then again, this place was about the National Park, not the fine dining. So, we went to the grocery store, got frozen pizza, and headed home. I guess even in the best of times this isn't the place for dining out. And, this was not the best of times. This sign says it all ...