6/25/14

I had a customer come to my window five minutes before we closed on Saturday, complaining that there was a bison laying in his campsite right where his tent was supposed to go. It was our good friend and mascot Stubby. We called the rangers, who tried to get him to move and let the customer set up his tent, but Stubby would have none of it. Stubby actually got mad and made the ranger get back into his car and leave. I think the customer was moved to a site that the rangers hold, just for such occasions. A couple of weeks ago, Stubby walked right through someone's tent. Fortunately, no one was in it at the time. The day before yesterday he spent some time in our loop lounging around in different sites looking for some good grass to eat.

Yesterday, we went for a drive to Lone Star Geyser. It's about three miles southeast of Old Faithful. You have to hike or bike 2-1/2 miles from the parking area to the geyser. It's not a strenuous hike (other than the distance if you haven't hiked much) since most of the hike is on an old road that you used to be able to drive out to the geyser. It's a fairly flat hike that follows the Firehole River. It's quite beautiful scenery as you are walking. There are logs to sit on when you get there. We will probably do it by bike next time and take our chairs.

 

The geyser erupts regularly, every three hours. It has an initial eruption of up to 15 feet that lasts a few minutes, then it's quite for 30 minutes to an hour.

 

If you are patient enough to wait, you get to see a more spectacular eruption that lasts quite a while and throws water and steam up to 60 feet high.