The next day we went for a hike and saw our first "wild-life": a colony of yellow-bellied marmots, a fancy name for a ground-hog-like Yellowstone creature (again, click on the picture for a larger view):
But later we saw some "real" wild-life: an elk hiding in the burned-out forest not far from the road:
The next day we crossed over the Continental Divide (twice!) on our way to Old Faithful...
At old Faithful is a huge parking-lot--with all manner of interesting conveyance, including this trio (with Michigan license plates):
Old Faithful is a pile of steaming white stuff, surrounded by a boardwalk, on which people gather every 90 minutes or so to see it go off. The first time it went off while we were there it was a little disappointing.
After that we went to see other Old Faithful attraction: the Old Faithful Inn. It is quite a piece of building, all made out of local lumber--well worth a look around.
On our way out of the inn Old Faithful went off again--this time much better:
Then we got our first taste of what Yellowstone is most famous for: geologically strange hot water gurgling up in various ways from underground, such as this pool here.
On the way from Old Faithful to the Madison campground (1000-plus feet lower, and no snow--the best campground we stayed at) we saw our first herd of bison (for some reason they don't call them buffalo--never did figure that one out).
But we did not know that we had not really seen anything yet, as far as Yellowstone goes. We were in for much more.
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