The thermal zones are by far the main attraction of the park and this is where we headed first. The 'Old Faithful' geyser is an impressive water spout which fires every 90 minutes or so, day and night and attracts a massive crowd to each viewing. The geyser in true US style has a buildup where you get a taste of what is to come with a few feet of water which then settles before the full force shoots through and water is shot something like 15 metres into the air!
There was little time to waste with the thermal zone as we we much more excited to go see some wildlife. Unfortunately our beloved Bison were the main attraction in the park which we had previously had a large serving of and were hopeful to see some of the rarer beasts! After cruising around the park searching we were able to find ourselves a nice big male Elk with the giant antlers and a black bear with her cubs. Unfortunately we were not lucky enough to see any wolves, grizzly's or moose... But there is plenty of other adventures to go so fingers are crossed!
The weather was quite chilly throughout our visit (with some periods of light snow/ sleet!), so for lunch we found some shelter at laundromat where we came across an amazing and unexpected time filler. There was a jigsaw puzzle! Not just your regular puzzle either; this one was a 3 D puzzle which when completed resembled a pyramid. There also was no picture of what we were creating and a few pieces were missing which made our task a little harder than it needed to be, never the less we soldiered through, conquered the puzzle and walked out as the first visitors to actually sit down and complet it! One of the staff there was somewhat of a puzzle enthusiast and told us about the largest one in the world which is 24000 pieces, comes in 6 bags of 4000 pieces and when completed constructs a massive piece of art which would be an impressive wall feature!
Our final night at Yellowstone was in a campground not too far from the main road north and we were lucky enough to have some free entertainment as we prepared our dinner. The area around and including the campground itself was home to a group of elk which had recently been calving. Now throughout our visit at the park, all signs and instructions noted that if an animal was spotted, visitors were not to approach as they can become quite agrevated at times; this was especially the case for the elk in question! As the visitors made their way along the road to exit the park, they of course noticed the elk, pull over and get out of the vehicles to get closer for a better picture. We then got to watch a series of chases where the people were chased by the elk across the road and back to their vehicles. In one case a lady ended up jumping into somebody elses car when she was unable to make it back to her own! Nobody was hurt but it definitely seemed like there was potential and hopefully they learnt a lesson.
After our stay in Yellowstone we were looking forward to escaping the tourist masses and heading to some more remote areas.
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