Yellowstone National Park - July 5, 2010

Originally I had wanted to stay a few nights in Grand Teton and a few nights in Yellowstone.  People plan these vacations way in advance, so there was no way I could find consecutive number of nights in either park with little over 2 weeks until the 4th of July, so I had settled on staying in Jackson and driving to the parks every day.  My friend Denise advised that I should at least stay one night in Yellowstone, so I searched online every few days for a cancellation.  I hate using the Xanterra reservation website.  You type in what dates you want to stay (for example, 7 nights), and the database goes through each day to see if there is availability, and you get multiple pop-ups saying that there are no rooms available for that particular day, for the range of your entire trip.  I noticed that I didn't get 7 pop-ups, so I inspected the calendar that shows up, and I saw some availability scattered on individual dates!  So I figured out that if you're interested in staying any day within 7 days (or however long is allowed by the website), just type that range in; the website will spit out the pop-ups, but look carefully at the calendar that shows up on the right hand side.  If you see a day that is not listed as "sold out", then it's available, and if you want to stay there then, edit your date of arrival to match those dates.  Hurry and do this quickly, as I hesitated once, and the dates were gone.  Doing it this way is more efficient than typing in different permutations of stay ranges, if reservations are close to full.

So about a week before arrival, I did a search on the website, and Monday night popped up for one of the Pioneer Cabins at the affordable Canyon Lodge!  I hurried to book it before it disappeared.  It was $70/night plus tax, which isn't too bad for being inside the park.  I had seen some rooms at the beautiful Lake Yellowstone Hotel for $225/night, and I was thinking to book one if I couldn't find anything else, but fortunately this cabin opened up!

In the morning, we packed up the car and headed to Yellowstone, via the town of Jackson and Grand Teton National Park.  We passed by the town square in Jackson, and each of the four corners was decorated with an arch made out of a ton of antlers.  It looked kind of gruesome, like an antler graveyard.  Think of all of the elk/deer/antelope that had to die to make these arches.  Driving through Grand Teton was a treat.  The contrast between the tall sharp peaks and the valleys is breathtaking...lots of big sky.  There were lots of turnouts to scenic views, perfect for people who do touring out of their cars.  We hit the Moran entrance station where admission was collected.  The price was $25 for both Grand Teton and Yellowstone Park for 7 days, but we already had an annual pass (called an Interagency Annual Pass) from when we were in Haleakala.  Note, if you have an annual pass, head towards the right-hand most lane as that is the annual pass lane...cars were breezing through.  We did not see the sign until we were already locked into a lane towards the left with no way to cut over. :(

From the entrance station, the drive towards Yellowstone got even more beautiful as we traveled around Jackson Lake.  We hit the south entrance of Yellowstone and headed towards Old Faithful.  I had been here before when I was young, but I don't remember much about Old Faithful besides the steam coming out of it.  It was difficult to find parking as this is a famous landmark.  Eventually we make it over to the geyser, but we figured it had just erupted as there were no crowds around it.  We didn't know when it would erupt next, but I was starving and we decided to grab some lunch and chance missing the next eruption.  We headed over to the Old Faithful Inn and had lunch in the dining room.  There wasn't a long wait at all, but there was a huge line to get ice cream at the nearby snack shop.  I prefer to try local foods, so Babe and I shared an appetizer of antelope sausage, followed by a bison burger.  It was the driest burger ever (I know bison is lean, but this was ridiculous) and didn't look like an 8 oz patty at all.  I wonder if we selected items that people don't normally order, as the most prominent item on the menu was an all-you-can-eat buffet.  I didn't want to do the buffet as it was close to 2pm and was unsure of the turnover of the food.  I wouldn't eat here again unless I came at a busy time to have the buffet.

I had to have ice cream for dessert and hoped the line would be shorter by the time we were done with lunch.  When we got to the snack shop, the line was non-existent, yay!  In fact, the workers were all "Hello!  Come in!", whereas I'm sure 30 minutes ago, they were hoping the line would go away.  Lots of flavors available, but I was drawn to the huckleberry ice cream.  A huge 2-scoop cup for $3.40 (I think), what a deal inside the park!   Huckleberry tastes like blueberry.  We bought one cup and as we were walking out of the Old Faithful Inn, I noticed a sign that said the next geyser eruption was in 10 minutes.  Perfect timing!  As we got closer to the geyser, we could see the huge crowds gathering to watch the spectacle.  It did not disappoint.  The geyser first did a small dribble, and I thought it was done, but since the crowds didn't move, we waited a bit longer.  Then the eruption happened; it shot pretty high up in the sky.  Pretty cool.  After the eruption, we walked along a trail with geysers and thermal pools scattered throughout.  Very pretty.  There was a thermal pool that kept spitting up and splattering part of the trail.  People were afraid to walk by it and tried to time their passing in between spits.  We were unfortunate and got hit by some water, but it wasn't hot at all.  We told passers-by that the water did not burn, and everyone started moving again.

It was late in the afternoon, so we drove over to Canyon Lodge to check in.  There was some construction on the road and it took forever to get there.  Checking in was a breeze.  Babe went to the front desk, gave his name, and they gave him keys, nothing to sign since it was all pre-paid and there aren't any services in the room (no TV, no telephone).  The Pioneer Cabins were in an area behind the lodge; a long walk from the cabins to the main lodge where the stores and restaurants were.  We drove back to the lodge after unloading the car, and had dinner in the Canyon Lodge dining room.  I deviated from eating the local food by ordering an appetizer of mussels in Thai curry sauce (special of the day) and it was sooooo good.  One of the best mussel dishes I've had, and it was at a national park nowhere near an ocean, haha.  Babe ordered the prime rib, which was the lodge's specialty, and it was good.  I ordered trout, but unfortunately, it wasn't that great.  The trout came from Idaho, but it was crusted with cornmeal, and I try to avoid corn as it makes me break out.  The menu didn't mention anything about a cornmeal crust, just "pan-fried". :(  There was no taste either, and in desperation, I had to add salt and squeeze lemon on it!  (I don't usually put lemon on my fish.)  At least the mussels saved the day.  I didn't expect national park food to be gourmet, but this wasn't an inexpensive restaurant, so I had expected a little bit more.  The other dining options were a grab-and-go sandwich place, and a buffet.  But I avoided the buffet once I saw a ton of Chinese people head towards it haha...they were probably on a Chinese bus tour, similar to what I experienced when I was younger. 

The cabin was roomy, basic but comfortable, with two double beds, the sink in the room with a separate bathroom with toilet and shower, and a small closet area.  The toiletries were actually nice and "green"; all packaging were made from recycled materials or biodegradable plastic.  The soap was interesting; it was the size of a normal bar of soap, but with a hole in the middle, claiming to "reduce waste".  There was also a cute teddy bear soap, I guess for the kids.  There were some shortcomings:  ants made their home in one of the ceiling beams.  They weren't anywhere near the beds, thank goodness, but it was gross to know that there were huge ants burrowing around.  Also, there were mosquito bodies plastered on the walls by previous guests, so I was wary of disturbances in the night.  I did end up smashing one in the bathroom that night.  And then, when I was readying to go to bed, I saw a medium sized yellow spider on my pillow!  I squealed at Babe to kill it.  I did not want to sleep in that bed anymore and switched over to the other double bed, haha.  These are the things one must endure when paying $70/night in a "rustic" cabin.