July 6 Thursday Yellowstone

Everyone slept in this morning, but the girls discovered the spot they chose for their tent was a bit hilly and lumpy (mostly due to buffalo hoof prints when the ground was muddy) so we will pick it up and move it today when everything has dried.  Their books that they had taken into the tent got a bit wet so we will dry them in the truck today.  We had cereal and blueberries for breakfast this morning and after washing the dishes, we headed to Old Faithful.  On the way, we saw a beautiful young elk stag.  He was so close to the car, we could see the velvet on his antlers.  I took a photo from the car.  We got to Old Faithful and gassed up the car, got the Junior Ranger booklets for the girls and then went out to wait for her to erupt.  The rangers give you a time when they expect her to erupt plus or minus 10 minutes.  In our case, she erupted 8 minutes after the prediction.  It was quite magnificent and the girls enjoyed it.  When then went up to Midway Geyser Basin to see the largest hot water pool in the park - temperature of the water was 244 degrees!  The water from the pool spills over in several waterfalls to the Firehole River below.  The girls tested the water in the river after the mixing and thought it was about 80 degrees or so.  We spent some time looking at the sulfur staining the rocks next to the pool and then headed back to the truck.  We decided to head over to Fishing Bridge for a late lunch as we forgot to pack sandwiches this morning - we had everything in the truck except the loaf of bread, which was in the bear box.  Everyone had a good lunch and I bought a huckleberry soda for everyone to taste (way too sweet for me) and even Zoe tried it as it was not heavily carbonated.  We went to the visitor’s center after lunch and the girls got their badges.  We came back to camp and had to sit in the car for a half hour as it was showering so I read another chapter of Caddie Woodlawn.  The girls are excited as they added another state (license plate) from the parking lot at OF as well as two more provinces.  There doesn’t seem to be any cell service for the new phone anywhere in the park so I am writing the blogs offline and will publish when we get to Jackson Hole.