Geyser Geezers and Coyotes

One thing I learned about Yellowstone is that they have some very friendly coyotes! I'm used to hearing them at my house, but in Yellowstone, they walk right by your tent or come up to your car in a parking lot! At first I was scared that they were rabid. Then I found out that they were all like that and began to enjoy them.

We saw Old Faithful 4 times. We especially enjoyed the bubbling mud pot at the Artist's Paint Pots. Mr. Blueberry Eyes thought the "Hook and Cook" pots at West Thumb were way cool! He had a great time imagining hooking the fish and cooking it in the boiling water right beside the lake. In the course of our time spent at Yellowstone, we learned to expect two questions at nearly every pool: #1 "Is it over my head? #2 Can I jump in? Which would inevitably be followed by a discussion of just how deadly that would be.
We were joined by our good friend, The Wanderer, on the second night. We camped near him for two nights and had fun learning camp-cookery from him and asking him all manner of questions about nature, since he is a ranger.

Our last day we spent geyser gazing. We got to see Castle Geyser, a fabulous geyser that goes for 15-20 minutes and has formed a castle-looking mini-mountain around it.

We even got to see Grand Geyser. Since it has a four hour window of when it can erupt, we armed ourselves with stuff to entertain the children and just camped out on the boardwalk. There was an old geyser geezer, grisled with character who would stand up and expostulate at each cycle about the potential of this being "IT". He was so funny to watch. He had to have been a retired professor of anthropologicalgeothermodynamicesospherology! -Nanette