Thursday June 11

Back to the travel journal!

Thursday we woke to TWENTY-EIGHT DEGREES!

So we hung out in the room for a bit.

By the time we went down to the little

restaurant next door (breakfast included in our

hotel room price...) it was in the 50's.

MUCH better.

Had a yummy little breakfast.

(Eggs / bacon / biscuit for me and

sausage/biscuit with OJ for Kyle)

Then it was time to hop back in the car

and head back into the park.

We have our Senior Forever Pass...

but it's in Rod's name and so they wouldn't

let me use it. Kyle had to buy a $35/week

car pass... but I think we got his money's worth!

This time we took the southern loop.

The cousins were out in full force.

We saw lots of "red dogs" (babies).

The southern route is much more "active"...

This is only a small fraction of our photos!

Old Faithful is not the only active geyser in the park!

Isn't that beautiful???

My seat in the car was LOW... so I finally rolled

up all our coats (since it was a much warmer day)

and covered them with my blanket and used it

as a seat cushion (booster seat) so I could FINALLY

see out the car window! LOL

Should have done THAT days ago....

We met a woman from Merritt Island (25 miles from home)

who lives / works at the park during the summers.

She recommended climbing Fairy Falls...

So we did.

At the top of Fairy Falls.

(I have Grandma Hanna's smile...)

The hike.

It's STEEP y'all!

But the view was worth it!

(And again, my walking sticks saved the day!!!)

So amazing to see HOT pools with grass just growing

right next to it. Again we took all the little side roads...

And we walked and walked and walked and walked.

My phone says I walked 18,738 steps that day!

And I believe it!

We went back to Old Faithful

and walked around, what felt like, the entire place...

We missed "Old" Faithful, but "New" Faithful was going strong...

See the Bison tracks?

There are all these signs saying DO NOT WALK

next to the pools, etc... but they apparently can't read.

Everywhere we went there were animal tracks in the water.

Right next to the pools!

I guess with all the people gone they just took over.

This was the section we walked.

Saw some beautiful things.

The weather was glorious!

We got sunburned.

And we were EXHAUSTED.

I was VERY happy to see the end of the trail approaching!

We stayed in the park until about 4:30 and then

headed back south to our Logan hotel for the night.

It was a nice drive - and we were tired and happy!

A quick stop at Pizza Hut for another pizza (delicious!)

and we crashed for the night.