Day 3: Lens Envy

Bozeman to Old Faithful Inn, Yellowstone National Park
Distance: 295 kms
Wrong turns: 2

This is part of a series of posts from our 2011 road trip. See the overview post for links to the other posts.

We woke to a sunny and crisp day where no snow had fallen on Yellowstone (as predicted). It was still cold though! Jeremy had also slept through the night which was great.

The drive to Yellowstone (west gate) was relatively quick. Unfortunately on the way I discovered my 17-85mm lens was playing up. Sometimes when I took a photo the camera would give an error message and the photo would be lost. Luckily I brought along my 50mm lens (which takes great photos) but is inconvenient in some circumstances when I cannot move to zoom (as I found out today).

We drove from the west gate through to Canyon Village, with a quick stop for bison photos (along with everyone else), to have lunch. After lunch we drove along the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and took photos along a series of lookouts. There were some fantastic locations, but it was really testing Jeremy's patience along this part, stop/start and getting in and out of the car. Also I could not help but notice all the other people with their working zoom lenses...

We continued through Yellowstone down past the very stinky Sulphur Caldron and Mud Volcano. As we drove on it was getting colder and the snow drifts were getting higher. We didn't bother stopping at Yellowstone Lake as most of it was frozen over. The last part of the drive across the Craig Pass was a bit hairy as the snow had melted across the road and it was a little slippery.

We arrived at the Old Faithful Inn and checked into our room which was in the oldest part of the lodge (built in the early 1900s). The room looked great as all the walls / roof were made of logs (Jeremy was fascinated with the walls and kept on touching them). Before dinner we were able to catch Old Faithful erupting, though Jeremy really did not want to sit still waiting for it to erupt.

Update: corrected distance; added Google Maps directions, a new photo and a link to the overview post.