Yellowstone Day 1
Well, it appears that the sneezing and occasional nose-blowing that Curmudgeon and I have been doing the past couple of days have, in my case, turned into a full-blown cold. It’s the first in five years for me, since before the pandemic. I guess I’ve been around too many people in restrooms, restaurants, and hotels. Upon awakening and feeling crummy this morning, I told Curmudgeon I’d go to Yellowstone anyway today because we’d shelled out hundreds on a room deposit that it was now too late to have refunded. We would need to stop in town for tissues and meds, and I’d have to take it easy and drink lots of fluids on the trip, so we’d need to take more bathroom breaks.
It was a cool and beautiful day here. It rained overnight at the resort, and there was a dusting of snow on the tops of the mountains!
We got to West Yellowstone around 10:30, where I got yummy McDonald’s coffee to pick me up. Then we stopped in at Yelp-recommended Ernie’s for a box lunch to go. Upon exiting the establishment, we started getting into the first black Nissan SUV, only to hear a man yelling, “Wrong car! Wrong car!”
We had, embarrassingly, started getting into the car of a man I had been chatting with inside. I don’t know if he had left his doors unlocked or if our key fob had actually unlocked his doors. Anyway, we apologized copiously while getting into our bigger Armada parked next to his vehicle. It reminded me of a story one of my friends told me when I was growing up of his older brother who went to my college years before I did. He got out of class and walked over to what he thought was his car. He got in, turned the key, and at that point, the car’s true owner ran up and told him he had the wrong car. It was the same make and model as my friend’s brother’s. I’ve since heard that that happened to other people.
Our first stop after entering the park was eating our Ernie’s picnic lunch by the Gibbon River. Afterwards, we visited Gibbon Falls a short way down the road. Then we made a stop by my favorite site of my last visit here thirty years ago, the Artist’s Paint pots, lots of bubbly, colored, stinky mud and steamy pools of water! (Curmudgeon makes his own artist’s paint posts all the time.)
Then we saw the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and Lower Falls. Nice. The more famous Grand Canyon is of course a lot bigger, and I’ve seen bigger falls (not Niagara, though), but these are a nice combination.
As we were driving along, we saw an elk. We pulled over to watch her eating on the other side of the road, just a few yards away.
After some confusion over which hotel we had reservations for (the printout said “Lodges” but also “Old Faithful Inn”), we checked into our hotel, the Old Faithful Inn, right next to the Old Faithful geyser itself. Here's a shot rotated ninety degrees, with the special addition of part of my finger!
Aaaaand it made a liar of me about the ninety-degree rotation. Okay, be that way. Also a close-up of the tower. We wanted to climb up there so badly, but they don't ordinarily let people up there anymore because of damage from an earthquake decades ago. We did see some people up there today and thought maybe they let you up there on tours, but no dice:
The rotation is up to its old tricks again. *sigh* [Update 9/2 - Orientation corrected.] I told the assistant front desk manager I was a light sleeper and would appreciate a top floor room, and he said he would put us in one of his favorite rooms. It’s at the back of the hotel on the end, on the second floor, partially hiding behind a tour bus.
At first, we thought there was no one above us, but we did hear a few floor squeaks overnight. Ours was the second-closest room to Old Faithful. Although our window didn’t quite look out on it, we could see quite a few neighboring vents!
When we reserved the room, the pickings were slim, so we knew we would have to settle for a communal bathroom. We figured one night wouldn’t kill us. We just decided to shower before coming and then do it again when we got back.
The hotel definitely gives you the antique experience. There’s no phone or TV in the room. They have live music in the lobby, and a lot of people gather down there. Oh, and there’s a balcony where you can observe Old Faithful and a schedule in the lobby so you’ll know when it’s expected to erupt next (+/- 10 minutes).
I called Mom from the lobby, as the best place to get reception, to ask how the urologist appointment went today. Not well. He said her kidneys were fine, but she had a bladder infection and a growth in her vagina. She couldn’t remember the word, so I was in the crowded, noisy lobby yelling “VAGINA?!” The doctor said she needed to see a general surgeon. The medical director at assisted living should be contacting me about that, maybe tomorrow. Of course, we’ll be driving back to the resort then.
We watched Old Faithful erupt from the balcony, then had sandwiches from the hotel’s deli out on that balcony, too. Now we’re in the lobby listening to mediocre piano playing, and I’m typing up trip notes on my phone. (I took this photo later, but tonight we are in the seats to the right. Check out the cool clock with its pendulum on the chimney.)
[Update: I just realized that the photos I took in portrait orientation are the ones that are rotated. Landscape is fine! Until recently, I had usually opened photos in Microsoft Paint, reduced their size, and edited them, till I realized that I didn't need to do that. Then I started loading them just as they were; however, that only works for the ones taken in landscape orientation, evidently. Now I know that if they're in portrait orientation, to first open them in Paint and save them. Then they'll apparently be just fine.]
It was a cool and beautiful day here. It rained overnight at the resort, and there was a dusting of snow on the tops of the mountains!
We got to West Yellowstone around 10:30, where I got yummy McDonald’s coffee to pick me up. Then we stopped in at Yelp-recommended Ernie’s for a box lunch to go. Upon exiting the establishment, we started getting into the first black Nissan SUV, only to hear a man yelling, “Wrong car! Wrong car!”
We had, embarrassingly, started getting into the car of a man I had been chatting with inside. I don’t know if he had left his doors unlocked or if our key fob had actually unlocked his doors. Anyway, we apologized copiously while getting into our bigger Armada parked next to his vehicle. It reminded me of a story one of my friends told me when I was growing up of his older brother who went to my college years before I did. He got out of class and walked over to what he thought was his car. He got in, turned the key, and at that point, the car’s true owner ran up and told him he had the wrong car. It was the same make and model as my friend’s brother’s. I’ve since heard that that happened to other people.
Our first stop after entering the park was eating our Ernie’s picnic lunch by the Gibbon River. Afterwards, we visited Gibbon Falls a short way down the road. Then we made a stop by my favorite site of my last visit here thirty years ago, the Artist’s Paint pots, lots of bubbly, colored, stinky mud and steamy pools of water! (Curmudgeon makes his own artist’s paint posts all the time.)
Then we saw the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and Lower Falls. Nice. The more famous Grand Canyon is of course a lot bigger, and I’ve seen bigger falls (not Niagara, though), but these are a nice combination.
As we were driving along, we saw an elk. We pulled over to watch her eating on the other side of the road, just a few yards away.
After some confusion over which hotel we had reservations for (the printout said “Lodges” but also “Old Faithful Inn”), we checked into our hotel, the Old Faithful Inn, right next to the Old Faithful geyser itself. Here's a shot rotated ninety degrees, with the special addition of part of my finger!
Aaaaand it made a liar of me about the ninety-degree rotation. Okay, be that way. Also a close-up of the tower. We wanted to climb up there so badly, but they don't ordinarily let people up there anymore because of damage from an earthquake decades ago. We did see some people up there today and thought maybe they let you up there on tours, but no dice:
The rotation is up to its old tricks again. *sigh* [Update 9/2 - Orientation corrected.] I told the assistant front desk manager I was a light sleeper and would appreciate a top floor room, and he said he would put us in one of his favorite rooms. It’s at the back of the hotel on the end, on the second floor, partially hiding behind a tour bus.
At first, we thought there was no one above us, but we did hear a few floor squeaks overnight. Ours was the second-closest room to Old Faithful. Although our window didn’t quite look out on it, we could see quite a few neighboring vents!
When we reserved the room, the pickings were slim, so we knew we would have to settle for a communal bathroom. We figured one night wouldn’t kill us. We just decided to shower before coming and then do it again when we got back.
The hotel definitely gives you the antique experience. There’s no phone or TV in the room. They have live music in the lobby, and a lot of people gather down there. Oh, and there’s a balcony where you can observe Old Faithful and a schedule in the lobby so you’ll know when it’s expected to erupt next (+/- 10 minutes).
I called Mom from the lobby, as the best place to get reception, to ask how the urologist appointment went today. Not well. He said her kidneys were fine, but she had a bladder infection and a growth in her vagina. She couldn’t remember the word, so I was in the crowded, noisy lobby yelling “VAGINA?!” The doctor said she needed to see a general surgeon. The medical director at assisted living should be contacting me about that, maybe tomorrow. Of course, we’ll be driving back to the resort then.
We watched Old Faithful erupt from the balcony, then had sandwiches from the hotel’s deli out on that balcony, too. Now we’re in the lobby listening to mediocre piano playing, and I’m typing up trip notes on my phone. (I took this photo later, but tonight we are in the seats to the right. Check out the cool clock with its pendulum on the chimney.)
[Update: I just realized that the photos I took in portrait orientation are the ones that are rotated. Landscape is fine! Until recently, I had usually opened photos in Microsoft Paint, reduced their size, and edited them, till I realized that I didn't need to do that. Then I started loading them just as they were; however, that only works for the ones taken in landscape orientation, evidently. Now I know that if they're in portrait orientation, to first open them in Paint and save them. Then they'll apparently be just fine.]