Day 64

Mom is up every morning much earlier than I and she goes off in search of coffee. When she gets back I slowly stir out of bed. I don’t get to sleep in nice hotels all that often and don’t see why days can’t start at noon. We take our breakfast coupons over to the Three Bear Restaurant . I get my Three Egg Veggie Omelet and mom gets bacon and eggs. The Three Bear Lodge does not have vacancy for tonight so we pack up our car and reserve a night next door at the Travel Lodge before leaving West Yellowstone and going into the park. I put on my ipod on the car speakers so that mom can listen to some of the books that I have been listening to while on the walk. The Tao Te Ching is a peaceful track to listen to while driving on a summer day through the park looking for critters and watching birds and buffalo and rivers, and it also stimulates philosophical discussions with mom. Mom takes every chance she can to put her feet in the water. Before coming to Yellowstone she got a new haircut and she is cute and alive here. We go by a few small geysers and people like herds of buffalo are going out to see every little squirt geyser even as the sun bears down relentlessly... We are content to see them from a distance and just be together so we don’t go way out on the wooden walk ways just to turn around again... we knew we would see a real geyser once we got to Old Faithful ;-) And it was a good thing we timed it like we did because we were lucky enough to see Old Faithful’s neighboring geyser go off which they say hardly ever happens. We went into the historic Old Faithful Inn, an extraordinary engineering feet to build such a structure out of logs. The fireplace was probably 20x20 feet at its base and towered up through the lobby to the 60 foot high ceiling. We had a light lunch at the Old Faithful Inn Restaurant... They have Veggie Burgers! I went to check if by chance the Inn had any vacancies for the next couple night and they had just one which was for tomorrow night and we jumped at it. Then we went out just in time to see Old Faithful blow. We continued our loop around the park and stopped again so Mom could put her feet in Yellowstone Lake. Wow this lake is fantastic... unbelievable that at his elevation, all this water can accumulate... so blue, so big, so pristine, and offset so beautifully by the mountains and trees all around it. We crossed the Continental Divide where interestingly enough their is a pond of lilly pads. I took mom to see the Lower Falls and the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone that so inspired the artwork of Thomas Moran, which in turn inspired congress to designate Yellowstone as our first National Park. We tried to make it back to West Yellowstone in time for the 6:00 IMAX show but just missed it so instead went over to our hotel to check in and rest before heading back over for the 8:00 IMAX show. Driving around West Yellowstone we found a grill with patio seating and a great smell coming from it and some lively patrons and hostesses so we went in for dinner. I had this great Veggie Primavera Pasta and Mom had steak. We discussed dependent vs. independent causalities, and what you would see if you were inside a sphere with a lantern and the inner walls of the sphere were reflective. Back to the Travel Lodge we went.