1993/07 Rockies trip - Old Faithful geyser basin |
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Sunday June 27th
We had reservations for the trailer park at Fishing Bridge in Yellowstone, which was only a couple of hours away across the next mountain range. We began to wonder if we were going to make it, following a very slow and erratic drunk out of Cody and along the Buffalo Bill reservoir, but she stopped at the schoolhouse, so we were able to carry on.
We quickly set up at the Fishing Bridge campground and then drove 40 miles to the Old Faithful geyser basin. This was partly 
because this is the one thing everybody has to see in Yellowstone, and partly because they were ripping up the road the next day, forcing all traffic to go round the other side of Yellowstone.
We parked amongst the National Park Service's magnificent wooden lodges and shelters, with their gigantic stone fireplaces. They'd come so close to losing them in the great Yellowstone fires of 1988.
We set off along the boardwalks. There's a lot more to see here than just one geyser, of course, and we wandered around until nightfall looking at springs and fumaroles and geysers and hot pools. We were lucky to see Grand Geyser do its spectacular thing for us.
Edna was happy to find that the area is also infested with friendly, fat marmots. We even found one that was lying across the boardwalk, so flat it had to be dead. When John approached it, it magically sprung to life, noted that he didn't have any food, and promptly turned its back on him and played dead again. One of the few times we'd have appreciated a video camera.
Old Faithful had performed for us in bright sunlight and we made one more stop there to watch it at sunset.
So, it was a late night, driving back to camp, dodging deer and squirrels, and hoping that we didn't run into a buffalo. As usual, these 
were scattered all over, don't move much, and the adults come in one colour, dark brown. 
Next morning it was Monday and I was scheduled to take the truck back to Cody to see if I could get the air conditioning fixed.