Vacation Recap: Days 4 & 5

Friday morning we decided to take a tour of the Old Faithful Inn.  I love learning the details and the history of places, so Caleb was gracious enough to agree to take the tour.  We thought the tour was really interesting, and if you have the time during a visit at Yellowstone, I would suggest you take it!  At the very least spend some time walking around the Inn - it is a national historic landmark and is quite fascinating.

the fireplace is made of 500 tons of rhyolite!

love all of the lodgepole pine beams everywhere

this was our view of the lobby from the bench we sat on in the evenings

from the porch of the Inn you can watch Old Faithful 

one of the original rooms of the Inn (built in 1904). you can stay in it for
$96 a night, but you have to use a public toilet and shower down the hall!

After our tour, we headed out to do the last few things we wanted to do before leaving Yellowstone.

this is taken from the parking lot of Old Faithful Inn.
Everywhere you look in Yellowstone is beautiful!

On our way towards the trail to Mystic Falls, we walked by a ton of geysers and hot springs.  This one is Sapphire Hole.  Possibly the most gorgeous one in Yellowstone!

beautiful.

at Mystic Falls

After Mystic Falls we went to see Fountain Paint Pots, another geothermal hot spot (haha get it) in Yellowstone.

Fountain Paint Pot

In the area around Fountain Paint Pot there were geysers as well.  This one I think was called Spasm Geyser, and it just kept shooting water!  It must have gone on for at least 10 minutes.

in front of Spasm Geyser 

Next we drove down Firehole Canyon Drive.  We stopped at the cascades because we just have this thing for watching water. 

Firehole Cascades

loving every minute together

Friday afternoon when we got back to the Old Faithful area, a storm was moving in.  We watched Old Faithful go off (for the 7th and 8th times of our trip!) and then it started pouring and hailing!  We spent the rest of the evening chilling out in the Old Faithful Inn lobby.  I made a list of random things to look for in the lobby (someone laying down, a set of twins, a bottle of wine, etc.) so we people-watched and checked things off the list.  It was nice to just relax.  

Saturday morning we left to drive back to Salt Lake City.  We stopped in the Tetons to look upon their beauty once more.  It was such a long trip back to SLC.  Somehow we ended up on the scenic byway (why do we always do that?!) and I felt like I was never going to get out of Idaho.  Once we made it back to the city, we shopped and ate at The Gateway for the evening.  We took a red-eye and finally got home at 2 pm on Sunday.  It was such a wonderful trip!

goodbye Yellowstone!

goodbye Tetons!