She was excited, however, to explore every one of the zillion gift shops in the area. We visited too many, got a few gifts and souvenirs, then found a picnic table for lunch. When we stopped in the Old Faithful Lodge for a bathroom break before leaving, we got to see a second eruption.
On the route back, we stopped at the Grand Prismatic Spring and hiked up to the overlook, ~1.6 miles. Overall, Yellowstone was not as jam-packed with people as we'd expected, but this area was very popular and crowded, with no wonder - it was beautiful!
We took the Firehole Falls scenic drive before heading back, which was also very pretty. During all our time in this section of the park, we were amazed at how many places had geothermal activity/sites, outside of the primary places to visit. The entire place was smoking. We saw a cute baby bison with its mom in front of some geothermal smoke and steam, and another bison later so close to our car on the road that we could've reached out of the car to pet it.
Returning to the campground, we stopped to examine the white stuff on the side of the road (snow?) and realized it had hailed while we were exploring this morning! Worse, it had rained enough at our campground that the corner of our tarp fell down and all our camp chairs got soaked. Sigh. We took some downtime for the girls to organize the inside of their tent and for everyone to chill. Our new campsite was right next to the laundry and showers, so I took advantage of both. On my way back from that building, the girls showed me the huge pile of what could only have been fresh bison poop really close to our site. We never did see any big animals in camp, but that reminded us how close we could be.
Right as we started dinner, it starting pouring again. Thank goodness Bill had the large tarp over the picnic table, but rain was still blowing in sideways. Veggie hot dog on a damp bun - not the best. Ruth was out of "embrace the suck" mode at this point, the "embrace" was gone. It hailed a bit more, but thankfully the downpour didn't last too long. Water had puddled under the table, so Bill and Zadie got to work digging a trench to drain it down the hill, which worked perfectly. The rain slowed down enough that we made it over to the laundry building where the employees gave the girls free hot chocolate or cider (feeling bad, I think, for everyone being so drenched over the last 24 hours), then we played some Heads Up under the tarp. It rained off and on all night, but the tents were dry enough and comfortable to sleep in - good night's rest for everyone.
