Thursday, November 1, 2018

May 26, Grand Prismatic and the Old Faithful Inn

We got up very early Saturday morning and headed to Grand Prismatic Spring, one of the highlights of our stay in Yellowstone.

We walked the loop to get closer to the spring, and passed Turquoise Pool.
It's impossible to see the scope of Grand Prismatic when you are level with it. Next time we will take a short hike that will allow us to look down on it.
What we were able to see in the morning was the changing colors of the mist rising from the pool--pastel shades of yellow, pink and blue.

It was mesmerizing, and we stayed there for quite awhile before heading back to the Inn for breakfast.


There was a lot of this...

On a side note, I've been so inspired by Grand Prismatic that I'm making a quilt based on it.
Saturday was the day we decided to spend the afternoon enjoying the Inn.
When we stayed here for one night, 45 years ago, our room was in the original part of the Inn. The drawback...no private bathroom. This is similar to the room we had back then.
We stayed in the newer part of the Inn this time. There is no wifi connection, and in fact, the reservation system still uses the old DOS computer operating system! Mark took a tour of the Inn in the afternoon and learned a lot about its fascinating history. It had its first guests in June 1904, and has weathered a 7.5 magnitude earthquake, as well as fires in 1988.


He found Room 54, of significance because that was his college football number.
Staircases are made from this twisted lodgepole pine.
It is really a magnificent structure, with the lobby measuring over 76 feet!
We spent all of our evenings at a table on the second balcony, reading, listening to live music, and occasionally walking a few steps to the outdoor balcony to see Old Faithful erupting.


We saw little wildlife other than American bison. And they were everywhere!


All visitors were cautioned to keep 25 yards away, because while they look fairly tame and slow because of their size, they can become agitated and move rapidly.

We ended our day watching Old Faithful, which was always impressive.

1 comments:

05 08
Anne / Springleaf Studios said... #

We stayed in one of those rooms without a bath about 28 years ago in Oct. Emily was about 11 months old.