Day 8: Yellowstone

Today we checked out of our hotel in Gardiner, MT and drove through the park toward our new hotel in West Yellowstone. We stopped by Sulphur Caldron and then headed to the nearby Mud Volcano area. It started snowing super lightly while we walked along. There were several really interesting mudpots and fumaroles in this area. I saw my favorite hydrothermal of the park so far while we were there. It was called Dragon's Mouth Spring. It really did look and sound like there was a dragon hiding inside the cave there.
As we were driving toward Old Faithful along the extensive coastline of Yellowstone Lake we were surprised to see that the lake's surface was frozen. We got out for a minute to check it out. It was pretty fun to explore. Next, we stopped by the West Thumb Geyser Basin, which was right on the lake. Elk were eating right in the middle of the geysers and springs, so that was super neat. Then, we stopped by Old Faithful. We happened to be there right as it was erupting. It was pretty small, so we think we just caught it at the tail end.
We stopped by the Mid Geyser Basin and Prismatic Spring next. There was so much steam over these springs that we couldn't appreciate just how beautiful they were. We could tell that they were really unique, though. Our last stop of the day was at the Lower Geyser Basin. We saw another geyser erupting. It was almost as high as what we saw at Old Faithful and was totally unexpected. It was awesome.
As it turned out our actual last stop in the park was for a herd of bison with their calves wandering down the road. I had heard that this happened, but so far we had only seen single bison walking along the road. It was a very Yellowstone-y end to the day.