Pistols and Holsters

(Lisa) Last day at the KOA….this morning Paul went to the coffee stand and got a coffee for him and a chai tea for me! This is quite a great campground. They have a store with homemade fudge! We already bought and ate some peanut butter/chocolate fudge and last night we bought some raspberry/chocolate fudge. Paul may even go buy another flavor tonight…who knows? We’re on a 25 year anniversary vacation! Oh, back to the morning…we had a big breakfast and headed out to see a few more geyser spots. We went to Midway Geyser Basin and saw the Excelsior Geyser which was amazing but to top that was the Grand Prismatic Spring. Wow. If we can post pics, then we’ll try to get that one showing. Afterwards we went to Biscuit Basin where some German guy walked off the boardwalk and took a picture of a geyser that erupts every 7-10 minutes. WHAT??? This other guy was yelling at him to get back on the boardwalk-he ignored him. Literally he was about 45 seconds away from being burned b/c the geyser went off. It was really bizarre. No Park Ranger in sight.

We then zipped into Old Faithful to shop around. Saw it erupt-again! Next was the Black Sand Basin and then we headed back to West Yellowstone. We enjoyed a yummy pizza at the Wild West Pizzaria. It was funny b/c the bathrooms were labeled pistols and holsters-you figure out which was which. The pizza was a great treat, then we walked around and bought some touristy stuff that I love! For the first time, on the way back to the KOA, it rained on us. We have been chilling in the camper-had a good rainstorm and started packing up a little.

We saw the same wiley coyote we saw yesterday. He was carrying a TNT box with ACME on the side. We think we saw a roadrunner just ahead of him. There were lots of elk hanging out at the same spot on the Madison River. There was even a tiny island in the middle where about 6 of them were chillin’. Didn’t see a moose yet. Those moose are not very friendly, they stay hiding. I refuse to buy any Yellowstone shirt or anything with a moose on it until we actually see one. Taking a stand!

(Paul) Too bad that nice cowboy saved that dumb German dude from burning his veenersnitzel to a crisp. Would have made a nice picture. Seriously! He was 30 yards off the boardwalk standing over a geyser that goes off every 7-10 minutes with 20 foot bursts of 300 degree water. And he was standing down wind. What a doofus! There’s like warning signs everywhere in 5 different languages (German being one of them).

Today was basically a chillin’ in Y’stone day. Finished up some loose ends and I can’t believe we didn’t have the Grand Prismatic Spring and Excelsior Geyser on the must see list. These along with the Brink of Upper Falls and Artist’s Point were colossal, majestic and grand in scale, color and sound.

Then it was to the nick-nack shops. Holy cow! Lisa is as picky about t-shirts as I am hats. Likes this color but not what’s printed on the shirt. Like’s what’s on this shirt but not the color. In a land of 100,000 made ready t-shirts we had to have one special printed onto the perfect color shirt for Lisa. Throw me to the momma grizzly. The process of finding Lisa the perfect t-shirt was more painful than any hike I’ve ever been on.

P.S. – Unlike my beautiful spouse I paid homage to the e-moose-ive one. Only 200 moose roam YS as compared to 3000 buffalo. I have a pre-printed YS t-shirt with a moose on it. That’s right! A moose. Holding onto hope of a sighting in the Grand Teton’s. It will happen.