A Tale of Two Geysers

---

Last night, we stayed just west of Cody, Wyoming at a ranch called Bill Cody's. It was a good place to stay because it was just 30 minutes from the east entrance of Yellowstone. After staying there, we decided it would have been a good place to spend a few days! They offer half day trail rides that would have been fun to do. For us, though, it was just a quick overnight. We enjoyed breakfast in the morning out on their big patio, though! The breakfast was delicious, and the view was picturesque, as we were nestled in the mountains. After breakfast, we set out for Yellowstone. The drive was beautiful, and we had no line to get in.

We're meeting Andrew's parents in Yellowstone. We'd invited both of our parents to meet us there, but mine were unable to go. Paul and Colleen decided to join us and are coming later tonight. They love national parks but aren't big on long hikes, so we thought we should do some hiking today while it was just the four of us.

I hoped to see a geyser other than Old Faithful this trip. While Old Faithful is spectacular to see, I've already seen it a few times and haven't had the opportunity to see another geyser! Near the Old Faithful area is a trail to Lone Star geyser. It erupts about every 3 hours. I read it usually has two small eruptions followed by one large eruption. The hiking loop is about 5 miles to see Lone Star geyser. I say "loop" because it starts and ends at the same road, but it's really not quite a loop because the start and end points are about a mile apart. Because Lone Star Geyser isn't as easily accessible as many of the other geysers, eruption predictions aren't posted on the national park website. I read that there is a book at the trailhead where people write eruption times. Perhaps it was at the other end of the trail because we didn't see it at the trail head.

Early on in our hike, we ran into enormous horseflies. I mean, horseflies are always big, but these ones were huge! I thought they were large, black bees at first. Nope, they were biting flies. For the most part, I could keep them off of us by swinging my sun hat. When the flies stopped biting, the hike was very enjoyable. It followed a creek, and it was forested. The path was very wide (an old road, in fact), and seemed to be perfect for hikers and cyclists! About a mile into the hike, we started getting swarmed by mosquitoes. Why didn't we bring bug spray?? We had our bear spray, but no bug spray. It was about this time that we ran into some hikers who were on their way back from the geyser, and they told us Lone Star erupted 20 minutes ago. Well, that was that. We turned around and headed back the way we came. We got back to the car hot and itchy with no geyser viewings.

We thought it might be nice to stop and see Old Faithful. We were in the area, and at least the kids would get to see a geyser! We headed over to the parking lot for Old Faithful. I was floored at how busy it was. I've been to Old Faithful before, but it's been about 20 years. The large parking lots were completely full with cars circling to find spots. Indoors was nothing less than shocking. I can't remember the last time I've been to any place so completely packed with people, even before COVID. The gift shop was basically wall to wall people, and we had to hold hands and squeeze through one person after another to make our way to the back to stand in line for food. It's not an exaggeration when I say this area of Yellowstone was busier than any area of Disney World we went to last month.

After eating and getting our cancelation stamps, we went to find a seat to watch Old Faithful. We had about a 45 minute wait for the eruption, but all of the seats surrounding the geyser area were full. We ended up about a hundred yards away. The eruption was still amazing to see, even from that distance, and I'm glad we saw it erupt! Joanna had never seen a geyser before, and she was impressed.

One advantage to being far from the geyser was that we were closer to the parking lot. After the eruption, we booked it back to our car. Even though we were one of the first people back to the car, it still ended up being a total zoo getting out. Thousands of cars were leaving at the same time, and it was insanity.

So, our first day in Yellowstone wasn't the most successful in terms of seeing what we wanted to, but it's still such a lovely place to be. We'd heard horror stories of traffic in Yellowstone, and we only experienced that near Old Faithful.

We checked into our cabin after the Old Faithful eruption. We're staying in the Lake Village area. When you turn in, there is a large, yellow hotel called Lake Hotel. When you keep driving, you see the little, yellow Lake Hotel cabins. If you keep going, the road bends by the lake, and you come up on Lake Lodge. Lake Lodge looks older than Lake Hotel, as it appears to be a grand but rustic log lodge. However, it's actually newer than Lake Hotel. If you keep driving beyond Lake Lodge, you reach the cabins. These cabins are the brown cabins. There are older cabins called "frontier cabins" here, and there are newer cabins called "western cabins." When you read reviews of the cabins, it's hard to differentiate between the Lake Hotel cabins, the Lake Lodge frontier cabins, and the Lake Lodge western cabins. It helps to know the Lake Hotel cabins are yellow, and the Lake Lodge cabins are brown.

Some of the Lake Lodge cabins, the frontier ones, are 100 years old. Although I love old buildings, I'm happy we were put in a new cabin. The new cabins are very shaded, which makes a difference when there is no AC! The older cabins have only small windows. I assume it's to protect them from sun exposure because they have no shade (you don't want to end up with little greenhouses!). Because the newer western cabins are in the shade, they have larger windows. We didn't drive through the whole area, but it appeared that cabin sections starting in the F section were new cabins. We're in the J section. It feels like we really lucked out with our cabin because it's so spacious, and we also back to the forest. The only downside is its distance to the lodge. The western cabins are the farthest from the lodge. We've walked it once, and it's a bit of a hike with a steep incline, so we rely on our car to go back and forth to the lodge when needed. We'd definitely stay in Lake Village again. This is a great area of Yellowstone, very beautiful, and feels fairly centralized as well. If we stayed in cabins again, we'd want to stay in the same ones, but we'd also be interested in staying in the lodge one day.

---

Photos

Trail to Lone Star Geyser
It's a lovely trail but very buggy. Bring your bug spray!