We can sum up this day with rain, rain and more rain. We started with breakfast at Bubba’s BBQ. They had a really good breakfast with homemade biscuits the size of your hand.
At that point it was just misting. So, we headed out to Jenny Lake again to hike one of the trails our mountain bike guide, Rose, had recommended. We got to the parking area for Jenny Lake Marina and it started raining pretty hard. 
We had to take a ferry over to the trail that was on the mountain side of Jenny Lake. When we got over there we began hiking toward hidden falls. It was .5 miles up the mountain. Initially we thought we might be the only stupid people on this hike in the rain, but we ran into an entire tour group. Everyone was wearing ponchos….or trash bags. When we started taking pictures I noticed that my camera battery was going dead. We only got a few pictures on my digital. The rest I had to take with my blackberry. Our next stop on this hike was Inspiration Point. It was another .5 miles up the mountain. It was a beautiful overlook of Jenny lake and the weather had cleared up by then. We had started our hike at 6800 ft and Inspiration point was at 7200 ft. 
As we were hiking down, we saw lots of evidence that some sort of animal was in the are…there was poop everywhere, but we never saw any wildlife. We hiked down the mountain and caught the next ferry back.
By now, the weather was clearing up and it was mostly blue skies and sunny. We began our drive to Yellowstone. It was about noon by this time so we planned to see Old Faithful and do a couple short hikes. We stopped in Coulter Bay for lunch. Justin had a Moose Drool brown ale with lunch. He said it tastes exactly what you would think something called moose drool would taste, however it did not seem to stop him from eating it. Then there was the baked potato incident. I was munching on my burger and next thing I knew I saw potato and a fork go flying. Not sure what happened, but it was pretty funny.
We got into Yellowstone and it began misting again. The drive thru Yellowstone was very pretty. When we got to Old Faithful, it began pouring. We put our rain gear on and headed toward the geyser. We were only out there for a minute before we were soaking wet. We ran to the nearest gift shop/cafe/ice cream store. We roamed around there for a while trying to dry off. We did a little shopping and got some ice cream. We got some 900 degree hot chocolate that we couldn’t even hold with the little cardboard cup things. Then we checked out the schedule for Old Faithful. It was about 10 min away from going off so we headed that direction. By then the rain had let up again. We stood around and waited for Old Faithful. It was almost right on time. It was pretty neat. The sound was the best. I’ve seen it on TV before, but hearing it is the best.
After that we headed toward the trail that goes around a bunch more geysers. We got to see a few before it started raining again. We toughed it out and finished the 1.5 mile hike.
We left Old Faithful and headed toward another hike. I think we missed our turn because we ended up at a bunch more geysers. This included Excelsior Geyser. As we approached this one all we saw was steam. It was hard to even see 5ft in front of you. People were walking out with wet hair. Old blue hairs had their shower caps on. It was good for the lungs after 6 days of dry air. We really didn’t get to see much of this geyser due to the stream. The little part we did see was beautiful. Then we walked around the “boardwalk” to another geyser. I can’t remember its name but it is the really pretty one that is on all the Yellowstone books. It wasn’t so pretty from ground level. It must only be pretty from the air. All we saw was a hole, with steam coming out of it. It was also very windy and it appeared that the bacterial mat had sucked up a bunch of hats. However, it is unlawful to mar the bacterial mats or step off the boardwalk.
We didn’t seem to see the trail we were trying to go on, due to poor signage and minor navigational errors. We decided we had had a long day and figured we’d head home. During our time in Yellowstone today, we saw a little chipmunk. That was it. I did see a lot of bison patties, but no bison. We are headed back up tomorrow and hopefully Yellowstone will live up to its reputation for hordes of wildlife.
We got back to Jackson and headed to a Mexican restaurant that was recommended by Rose. It was pretty good, nothing too special. They did have a yummy Twisted Cowgirl dip.
Due to the battery issue with the camera, I only got a few pictures I can put on the blog. Once I get the right connector for my phone I will download more photos and a video from Old Faithful.
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