Finishing up Yellowstone - Fall Break 2020

 We had one day at Yellowstone earlier this year when we vacationed in the summer up that way.  We needed a few more days to finish all of it that was open.  We decided to do it for Fall Break.  It turned out to be a really nice trip.  We left Wednesday afternoon and spent the night with Jay and Brynn and then took off the next morning.  We got there in time to have most of the afternoon Thursday to get started.  We came in at the West entrance and went south to visit the Lower, Midway and Upper Geyser basins on that part of the Grand Loop.  Our last stop for the day was Old Faithful and we were lucky enough to arrive at a time when we were able to see it erupt at 6:28 pm! (Earlier we arrived just in time to see another geyser erupt and also saw buffalo scattered around there.) It wasn't too crowded either.  Actually because of the time of year and because all of the Lodges and Visitor's Centers are closed for Covid, the whole trip was a little less crowded than it might have otherwise been.  Another thing that was great was that we did lots of walking to see all of the places so we weren't just driving and never getting any exercise.  It was cold!  We had light coats and no long john pants that first afternoon and we got pretty cold.  The next two days we were just right even though it was about 38 degrees, sometimes less, and snowed and rained a little.  We stayed in West Yellowstone for the first two nights.  Pretty crowded there in the evening, so the first night we just cooked chicken pot pies in the microwave in our room for dinner.  The hotels weren't serving regular breakfasts the whole trip.  They just had brown bag breakfasts that you picked up to eat in your own room.  We brought other food and ate lunches in the car as we drove around.  It was too cold to sit outside and eat!  

On Friday we drove the upper western part of the Grand Loop and visited all of the cool stuff along the way between Madison and Mammoth Hot Springs.  So many awesome things to see there!  Mammoth Hot Springs was probably the coolest thing that day.  It's so different from the other things you get to see.  We also took a long loop hike that day and saw all different kinds of hydro thermal phenomenon at the Norris Geyser Basin.  It's a really huge area of activity.  We drove clear to the North Entrance also so we could see the Roosevelt Arch at Gardiner.  I had always wanted to see it and it didn't disappoint!  Amazing stonework! That night we got lucky and found a really nice Chinese restaurant that didn't have an hour wait/wasn't crowded.  Really good food!  

Saturday morning we went to the Grizzly & Wolf  Rescue Center in West Yellowstone.  It was a really interesting place to learn about and actually see these animals up close.  They also had river otters and birds.  We were glad we took the time to take it in.  After that we drove up the west side to cross over at Norris Road and saw all we could of the Lower/Upper Falls at the Grand Canyon area of the park.  We got to hike a little to see it from different viewpoints.  We couldn't drive the road from Canyon Village to Tower-Roosevelt because that section was still closed as it had been earlier in the year when we came.  They just have to close full sections to do roadwork sometimes. That will have to be visited at another time.  After going as far as we could there, we drove down the lower east side (Lake and West Thumb section) and out of the south entrance through the Tetons to Jackson and then on the Pocatello to spend the night.  We got lucky again and were able to eat dinner at the Sizzler there.  It was really good.  

Sunday morning it was time to head home.  We took some I-15 and some backroads to get  home.  We listened to a couple of good books on the long drive parts.  It was a GREAT trip!