Yellowstone July 2010 - Day 5 - Part 2 Old Faithful

After the upper geyser basin we headed to the middle geyser basin, which was a little bit shorter, but had some amazing springs.








Here is Saul with Andreas in the backpack, taking him up to see the springs. The middle geyser basin actually is stroller friendly, so we will have to remember that for next time so Saul can have a break from the backpack!
This was the Grand Prismatic Spring. I think this was one of the most amazing sights on our trip. It was huge and had every color so vibrantly, you almost couldn't believe your eyes.





Note the blue steam in these pictures -- the steam actually went from blue to red and was pretty amazing to see.

Our last stop was at Old Faithful. We arrived just in time to see it, so it was great planning on our part. It was pretty spectacular, and luckily there were a lot of places to rest, shop and eat to help us recover from our long day.

Yellowstone July 2010 - Day 5 - Part 1 Geysers

On the fifth day we headed over to the Norris Geyser Basin and hiked around to see all of the geysers and hot springs. There was a lot to see and they had some beautiful spots. On the way we saw yet another elk on the side of the road. The unusual part was that we were the first ones on the scene for this one, so there was no herd of people to get through in order to see it.


Here we are at Norris Geyser Basin:











They had every color of the rainbow there, and it was so vibrant, it almost seemed unreal. We thought it was weird to think about people in the olden days just riding their horses around and then happening upon crazy stuff like this:






Andreas had just about had it by the time we reached this point of the hike, so we had to stop for about 20 minutes to feed him on the deck overlooking this spring. We had a lot of time to look at it, and it was so interesting to see the colors. The colors were directly related to the temperature of the water. We saw a kid with one of those thermometer shooting laser things, and we wished we had one.
More beautiful views all around too!
This is Emerald Spring:


This spring was an eerie white -- almost like milk.
I'm not sure if the picture shows it, but the mud here was boiling and spitting.

We had to hike up and around to get this view at the Artist Paint Pots, but it was worth it to see the boiling mud and other cool stuff at the top.
Then we went to upper and middle geyser basins. One of our favorites was this spring. Dad almost missed it because he was trying to help some people with their car that had broke down, but we insisted he see it since it was so spectacular. Also of note was that Mom saw someone letting their little kids pick wildflowers and then throw them on the ground, so in true principal style she went over there and gave them all a talking to.

A pretty active geyser was going off there too: