Day 48 - Our last day in Yellowstone :(

Lauren and I had big plans for day 48. It was our last full day in Yellowstone, and we still had loads of things we wanted to do and see.


Since it served us so well the day before we started our day with a "ranger recommended" hike to Lone Star Geyser. We left the parking lot knowing that lone star reliably erupted every 3-hours, but with no idea when the most recent eruption had been. Fortunately (for us) we passed an exiting hiker near the parking lot and they informed us that when they got to the geyser about an hour and a half ago, they had "just missed it." The trail head said to budget 1-hour to reach the geyser so if everything went as scheduled, we should arrive just before the next show!

The hike itself was extremely easy (no elevation gain whatsoever) but quite pleasant with a tranquil stream winding alongside the left side of the path and lots of wildflowers in bloom.

 We got to the geyser with time to relax and chat a bit with the small handful of other hikers that had decided to go"get off the boardwalk" and check out one of the less attended geysers.

The pre-eruption gurgle...

And there she goes!

On the walk back I tested my balance on a felled log...

I made it all the way to the other side and back without falling in the water (which, I realized afterwards, was a very good thing considering I have the good sense to take my iPhone out of my pocket before attempting the stunt!)

We also saw a track from a very big dog or a baby bear (I'm prone to think it was the later) but alas, no sign of the animal itself.

From Lone Star we headed to the boardwalk of Grand Prismatic Spring (pictured from above yesterday).

It was every bit as impressive up close as it was from above!

From there we headed to the Mystic Falls hike. The start of this trail winds through a field of gurgling geysers but the destination is something Lauren loves more than geysers... a waterfall.

 The view from the top was amazing but a quickly escalating threat of rain (and more importantly, lightning, hastened our pace and we headed down shortly after reaching the top of the falls.

After escaping the threatening lightning we retreated to our campsite for some grub. As we were preparing dinner we took note of the distinctly different "camping necessities for me and for Lauren to be happy campers.

My camping necessities:

• Beer
• Fire

Lauren's camping necessities:

• Wine
• Bear Spray

PS. If I haven't made it clear yet, Yellowstone is a HUGE park. We made a deliberate point of driving as little as possible today and when we checked the odometer at the end of the day we saw that we have driven 84-miles!