The day had come! Possibly the day we have been the most excited for in the entire honeymoon. Yellowstone! Do we need to say more?We had looked up recent temperatures to be as low as negative 30 Fahrenheit. Which, as you can imagine, could be a little intense. It wasn't quite that bad, but it was... a little intense to say the least.
Initially, we weren't sure how the day was going to play out. It looked like a proper blizzard outside. We got ready anyway and went down to the lobby to wait for our Snow Cat tour to pick us up. We got in our tour, and started the journey. We had to do a quick stop at the main tourist station to pick up some others, and we were on our way.It was at this point that our tour guide let us know that in the middle of the blizzarding weather that we would need to keep all the windows open in the vehicle, otherwise it would completely fog up. Then our driver let us know that if she was quiet, it was because she needed to concentrate on the road, because yesterday was one of the worst days she had seen, and today was setup to be much worse. That freaked out most of the people in the car. Whatever. Haha.
It wasn't long before we crossed through the park gates to Yellowstone National Park and we were off! We started our trip next to an amazing river and some pretty cool, albeit pretty normal ducks.Whatever, we like ducks. Especially snowy Yellowstone ducks. And snowy Yellowstone Elk! AND SNOWY YELLOWSTONE BISON BISON! Otherwise known as Buffalo. It was drinking some water at the river, covered in snow, looking kinda bored? And generally looking pretty damn chill. Bison are one of our favorite animals, and to see one so early in the day was amazing. If you haven't ever seen one before, make sure to do it. They are wise, beautiful, chill, and just generally appear to be one of the best animals ever.
After hopping out and take a few Bison-photos we got back into the Snow Cat and saw our next animals for the day! Some bald eagles, swans and a couple ravens! They were all hanging around a dead elk that had been killed the night before, so that was a bit gross, but, nature. It was really incredible to see all these animals in their natural, fairly undisturbed, habitat. After the bald eagles, we were onto our first break for the day.
The biggest heard of Bison Bison we saw were maybe 40-50 buffalo in all, mostly hanging out with their feet in some hot springs. Awesome. Beautiful. And a tad hilarious.
Now things got interesting. Apparently, snow makes it a bit harder to drive, and that was starting to get obvious now. One of the huge snow cat busses had crashed and was stuck, forcing all of the traffic in Yellowstone to be routed through a single lane.
Getting past that, we drove for about half a mile and then we got to a situation where we came towards another vehicle head on, and, well, they slid off into the snow as well (lets count that as crash #2).
We got into the Old Faithful Lodge a little bit late because of the traffic/accidents we had witnessed before, but not too late to see the big show! We went out to Old Faithful and waited for the geyser to blow. Think of about 80 tourists standing in a blizzard, waiting for something to happen that isn't quite as faithful as you're expecting. like 20 minutes each side of the time. 40 minutes in like -18 F is not cool, guys. It's ICE COLD hahahaha.Anyways, we finally made it, Old Faithful performed in all her glory, and it was pretty awesome, albeit freezing.
After Old Faithful, everyone went out to the cafeteria to fill up on some food and Old Faithful Pale Ale's and after a quick stop in the gift shop to purchase our new stuffed animal (duh) "Bison Bison", we were on our way!As we were on our trek back, there was crash #3 and #4, unfortunately, blocking both lanes on the road, making it impossible to pass. After maybe an hour waiting there, one of the vehicles got towed out and we were able to continue on our journey. Well, for a little bit at least, until we slid out and crashed right after that (we can go ahead and call this crash #5, hopefully the last one we would see).
After we got towed back onto the road, we were on our way to go check out the mud pots geyser and thermals. We stopped there and went to the bathroom (we had to dig our way through the snow to the bathroom) and then on to the mud pots!
As per usual, Ryan was only wearing his Air Force One's (Nike Shoes), and didn't have much traction in the blizzarding icy snowstorm. He was actually standing on a path at the Mud Pots, and sliding across the path, without moving at all. In a way, it was terrifying, especially knowing that we were about 2 feet away, with no railing, to a thermal feature that was 200 degree Fahrenheit!
Then we got up to an amazing blue thermal feature, and the mud pots just above that. Absolutely beautiful. Luckily, no one fell into the pit of 200 degree acid.
After a few more near-crashes, we got back towards the entrance of the park, but not without one last bison sighting. This time, it was a herd of buffalo, and they were all in the middle of the road. We literally had to wait for them to move out of the way before we could pass. A bison traffic jam.. Pretty much the best traffic jam we had ever been in. We were literally within 2 feet of these amazing creatures. It was the best.
As we were heading back, we heard someone else in our tour pick up his iPhone and say "Oh no, okay, so do you remember how to do CPR?... Okay.. So grab it, and push it in, and then press start on the washer." We were very confused as to why anyone would start a sentence about starting a washing with a confirmation of CPR knowledge. Needless to say, everyone in our tour let out a sigh of relief after realizing that he wasn't instructing someone on life saving, and rather on laundry maintenance.We took it pretty easy once we got to our hotel, it had been a pretty long day, lots of bison, lots of amazing scenery, and lots of crashing as well! The hotel receptionist told us that the road back to SLC was closed and probably would be the next day too ( when we had planned on driving back to SLC,) but instead of worrying, because that was for future Conor & Ryan, we just skyped with Kody, hung out in the hot tub, drank some wine and ate Pizza. A perfect end to a perfect day!
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