Yellowstone: Day 2 - Welcome to Old Faithful

September 07, 2016 by Kristyn Schwartz in Cross Country Road Trip, Yellowstone

If you’re reading this then obviously you know we’re at Yellowstone, well at least I hope you do. If you don’t then you might want to stop reading and backtrack to my last post. I’m serious, go read Yellowstone: Day 1! I’ll wait…
See that wasn’t so hard, and now you won’t be confused, well at least not more than usual due to my excessive rambling and random tangents haha. But anyways back to Yellowstone! The first time I was here Eric and I just did the typical touristy things like watching Old Faithful from the wooden benches surrounding the geyser, but with Eric living and working there now, we had the inside scoop of where to see the geysers from above without all the people around. Old Faithful goes off anywhere from every 35 to 120 minutes. There are a lot of misconceptions about OF and the regularity in which it erupts. Truthfully I didn’t even know these facts until Eric informed me, but one thing that is true is there absolutely is an “Old Faithful Indicator” (well at least in the busy season). You can always tell when its getting close because the crowd will be abundant! As soon as OF is finished the crowd disperses like their life depends on it, in fact the morning after camping Haley and I went to grab a snack from one of the many food options in the Old Faithful Village and as we were ordering one of the guys behind the counter yelled back to the kitchen “here they come!”. We turned around to see what he was talking about and I swear it looked like a stampede of people were approaching, the guy explained that if we had come in 5 minutes later we’d be in a 30-40 minute line to get a sandwich; on that note we quickly grabbed our food and left before the masses arrived! But back to those facts I mentioned, OF erupts for about 1.5 to 5 minutes at a time and it’s maximum height is between 90 and 184 feet. It’s not the biggest geyser and to my surprise it’s not even the most regular geyser in Yellowstone but it’s the most famous and well known that's for sure! Another fun fact I learned is it can only be predicted one eruption in advance and the previous length of the eruption is what the next wait time is based upon. Meaning if the current eruption is 2 minutes then the wait time till the next eruption would be about 55 minutes whereas a 4.5 minute eruption would cause about a 90 minute wait time. The times of the next eruption are posted many places throughout the park and according to the posted time we had about 15 minutes until it went off. Eric suggested that we go around back and watch it go off from below and then hike to the overlook to watch it again from above the crowd. I thought that was kind of strange because he had gotten incredibly sunburned the day before and made it a point that he didn't want to stand in the direct sun, but I also was too preoccupied with taking a million pictures of the scenery to put much thought into the change of plans. I did notice that nobody else was standing around back like we were, which I also thought was kind of strange since we had a perfect view. But again, I just didn’t really think much of it. One thing Old Faithful is really good at is teasing you for a good 10 to 20 minutes before it goes off, so every minute or so leading up you're like “Oh…is this it?! No not that one” “Now?? Not yet” but eventually it went off. And within about 10 seconds, we started feeling a little mist... and then before we knew it we were completely drenched and smelling of sulfur. And as the wall of water came at us, Eric yelled over the thunderous roar, "Welcome to Old Faithful!" I look over and he's just cracking up, Haley's attempting to cover the lens of her camera with a big grin on her face, and a couple of Asian tourists were running for their lives; personally, I loved it. After a long day of hiking I embraced the cool water with open arms, sulfur smell aside it was quite refreshing! Eric felt bad seeing Haley having to cover her camera, but she couldn't even be mad because it was such a great prank. We took a couple selfies full of laughter and wet hair, and as our new buddy Old Faithful died down, we set out on the steep hike up to the observation point to catch the show all over again from above.

From the base of Old Faithful to the observation point, it's just shy of two miles depending on the path you take. There's actually quite a little network of trails that branch out to a few other geysers as well. Not five minutes into our hike, we could no longer hear the rumble of the geysers or the incessant chatter of people. The shade from the trees allowed us to escape the hustle and bustle of the hundreds of people below and mentally transported us away from any and everything that was on our mind. Winding our way through fallen trees and moss covered rocks we made our way up the side of the mountain. Every once in awhile there would be a break in the trees or a gust of wind would blow through allowing the sun to shine down, instantly blanketing everything in a warm golden hue. We were the first to reach the top so we had our pick of where to sit and take in the beautiful scenery. There was a rickety wooden fence feebly attempting to keep tourists away from the very edge. I almost felt sorry for the old fence as it clearly had been ignored and passed over time and time again. As we were about to do the same and disregard the old fence we saw the cutest chipmunk! He was such a little ham, I swear he was posing for the camera. He hung with us for about five minutes before the next group of hikers arrived. A few other people found their way up to our spot and the little guy eventually ran off but it was fun while it lasted. We finally made our way over the poor fence and sat on some rocks and waited for the show to begin. Out of nowhere, a geyser erupted in the opposite direction - thanks to Eric's vast knowledge of the geyser basin we learned it was Beehive, and to be perfectly honest it was far more impressive than Old Faithful. He went off for about 8 minutes and had some height on him! Apparently it only goes off roughly twice a day but has about an 8 to 24 hour window so it was really cool to have the opportunity to see it!

As we each sat on our respective rocks with our feet hanging over the edge, waiting for Old Faithful to entertain us once again, we quietly took in the view below. It was really cool seeing everything from an aerial view. It really put everything in perspective. We could see where Eric's dorm was compared with the Old Faithful Inn where he worked, as well as the area in which we hiked the day before. It really was quite spread out. To me it was just kind of crazy that all this was built in the middle of a National Park. With the way they had the times posted for Old Faithful and the rush of people flooding the restaurants after the “show” was over I just couldn't get the feeling of it being like a theme park out of my head. It kept reminding me of being at Disney World when I was younger and lining up to see the parade and then rushing to one of the many restaurants as soon as it was over for a quick dinner in the park. Of course am I really surprised that man managed to turn nature into a theme park and profit off it? Unfortunately I am not.

Eventually OF went off and we watched as a few other unsuspecting victims were "blessed by Old Faithful". We laughed as they ran in all different directions attempting, with little success, to stay dry. We watched as the crowds dispersed probably heading off to get some food or perhaps to take a nap in their cozy little hotel rooms. I gave one last sigh as I climbed down from my rock and shook my head in an attempt to shake off the weird feelings that had engulfed me while we sat silent for the past 30 minutes observing the scene below. We made our way back down the mountain, taking a little detour to check out Solitary Geyser, and Eric found another trail down that he hadn't known about before so we set off to explore and found ourselves coming out in the middle of the boardwalks, which was cool because it allowed us to check out Beehive up close. We applauded him on a job well done. I find it so interesting how roughly an hour ago this little guy had shot thousands of gallons of water out and now it just sits silent and still like nothing happened. By this point we were pretty exhausted and definitely hungry so we headed to the Bear Pitt for bison burgers and huckleberry margaritas. Yes I felt like a hypocrite after quietly judging the entire concept however I had to put my dislike of man aside for turning nature into a business because that was the best damn bison burger I've ever had, and that huckleberry margarita?! To die for!

Yellowstone: Day 1

September 01, 2016 by Kristyn Schwartz in Cross Country Road Trip, Yellowstone

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock I’m sure you’ve heard that last Thursday was the 100th birthday of the National Park Service. It’s fitting that this weeks post takes us to one of my favorite national parks: Yellowstone. I’ve only been here once before but that's all it took for me to fall in love with this place. My best friend, Eric, and I had visited Yellowstone back in October when he and I did my first cross country road trip. As we stood there all bundled up in the cold waiting for Old Faithful to go off we had NO idea how much things were going to change over the next 6 months. We also didn’t know that October is the end of the season for most of the big national parks in the Midwest. None of the attractions or amenities had been open and there were hardly any people there in comparison to now. Eric also fell in love with Yellowstone on that trip, so much so that he decided to work here for the summer! Since cell service is pretty much unheard of in about 99% of the park Eric and I set a time and place to meet in case our phones didn't work and I'm so glad we did because the second I entered those gates I didn't send another text, tweet, or Facebook update for about 4 days...and I LOVED it! I just put that thing on airplane mode and didn't give it another thought!
We had agreed to meet Eric in front of the Ranger Station at the Old Faithful Village around 9am. Haley and I decided to get an even earlier start however because we’ve heard countless stories of the campgrounds filling up really early. I’m so glad we decided to heed those warnings because as we pulled up to the Madison Campground at about 8:10am there were cars and people everywhere. I jumped out of Penny and ran to get in line, nervously waiting to see if we were too late! When I got up to the window the ranger told me there was one group site left at the very back of the campground…we took it! We didn’t even bother to go look at it we just signed what needed to be signed and headed off to meet Eric. Thankfully he was right where he said he’d be because without phones we were at a loss trying to get in touch with anyone. Eric suggested that we go ahead and move our car to his dorm parking lot however Penny was packed pretty full so there wasn’t exactly a third seat available. I ended up letting Eric drive and I, not so gracefully, tried to climb in back. The only way we could get the door closed was if we put the window down and I stuck my legs out! Thankfully it was a very short ride to the employee area because I seriously felt like I was in the back of a clown car! We pulled up to his dorm and it looked like your typical college dorm mixed with your old cabin from summer camp. Eric informed us that his dorm was named Bitterroot, apparently they were all named after flowers (a lot like my cabins from summer camp which were named after trees haha). He pointed to the building to the left which was apparently the employee pub, he said he got us passes if we felt up to going out any of the nights we were here. It was crazy seeing this whole hidden side of Yellowstone, I mean it was huge and we hadn’t even scratched the surface! We grabbed our backpacks with all our hiking gear, aka sunblock, water, and a change of clothes, and headed up to see Eric's room and meet his friends. It was cool but also a little weird being back in a dorm setting. As we walked into Eric's room his roommate, Jamie, was still in bed. I forgot it was still only 9am because Haley and I had been up since about 6. As we were catching up and talking about what we wanted to do Eric’s suitemates came in, Michael and Angel. Granted it was early and Jamie had just woken up but when we met him he was nice and quiet, when we met Michael and Angel it was very different. If they weren't already I'm pretty sure the whole dorm was now awake! Angel is a very tall and very loud Puerto Rican with a huge but fun personality. He and Michael might be two of the most entertaining people I've ever met. It was great meeting everyone but Haley and I were ready to hike and explore all that Yellowstone has to offer! With the help of all the “locals” we decided to save the touristy hikes until tomorrow, Grand Prismatic and Old Faithful, and today they were going to take us on a hike on Xantera property. Turns out there's a part of Yellowstone that Xantera, the company that runs the hotels and restaurants in the park (and other parks such as Grand Canyon etc.), owns and everyday people don’t have access to. Since we were with employees though we were getting to hike around that land! Like I said earlier, it was just crazy seeing this whole other side to Yellowstone.

Haley, Angel, Eric, and I set off on our hike to an area known as Fern Cascades. However as we hiked we began to realize there were no ferns or cascades haha. It was still a really nice hike, there were a lot of fallen trees as well as a lot of burned trees. Apparently a fire had come through here at some point, I couldn’t tell if it was a controlled fire or not and it was obviously way before the boys had started working here. Eric had mentioned there would be a big pond when we got to the top so when we passed a small little pond on our left I was wondering if that's what he meant. Nobody stopped however though so obviously that wasn’t it. We kept going up and up, passed more and more fallen trees until finally we came to what clearly had to be the big pond. It definitely wasn’t a pond you could swim in but it was still really pretty to look at. I wish I had brought my hammock because there were a million places we could have hung it, oh well there were plenty of logs to sit on. Eric brought his guitar so we all just sat around admiring the scenery, drinking some beers, and listening to him play. I’d say it was a pretty perfect first afternoon in Yellowstone and I’m pretty jealous that Eric gets to do this all summer long! After awhile we were pretty hungry so we decided to head back down to civilization and get some food, plus we wanted to get back to the campsite while it was still light out so we weren’t setting our tents up in the dark!

We went to the “Lower Store” which looked like a cute old diner within a gift shop where we had a very interesting man serve us some burgers. The man made it very clear that his shift was ending in about 15 minutes and he wasn’t going to wait around for us to finish so we scarfed down our food and headed back to the dorm. Word got around that we had a group campsite at Madison so we ended up with a few more people than we planned to go camping with. It ended up being 7 of us in total; Eric, Haley, and me of course, his suitemates, Angel and Michael, and then two others, Andrew this really chill guy who honestly is exactly the type of guy I would expect to be working at Yellowstone, and then this girl Chelsea who might have the thickest southern accent I’ve ever heard…and I lived in Georgia for a couple summers.
Eric, Haley and I crammed into Penny the same way we did earlier, with my feet hanging out the window, and everyone else followed along in Chelsea’s car. As we pulled up to our campsite it appeared to be a great spot with quite a few trees that would be perfect for hanging our hammocks! First things first we unloaded and got to work setting up our tents. One good thing about camping while moving cross country is having just about everything I own in my car so we had plenty of blankets and pillows, my tent was as cozy as it gets! After we got everything set up and organized we set out to find firewood so we could get a fire going before it got dark. Eric’s always been great at making fires so we let him take charge and before long we had a roaring fire! He then played us some music on his guitar and we sat around the fire wishing we had thought to bring marshmallows! We had a fun night filled with music, laughter, and campfire smoke, and after the wonderful day we had hiking through Yellowstone I went to sleep with a smile on my face. Day one in Yellowstone was a success and I couldn’t wait to see what day two would bring!

Crater Lake National Park!

July 19, 2016 by Kristyn Schwartz in Cross Country Road Trip

We left Napa bright and early like we planned. It was hard leaving the beautiful Napa Valley but we were eager to cross into Oregon since that would be a new state for both Haley and me. On our way out of California, however, we had the pleasure of driving around Mount Shasta. When Nance was little, she and her family used to rent a houseboat for a few weeks in the summer there. They would tow the ski boat behind the house and just drop anchor whenever they felt like water skiing! If blogs existed when she was my age y'all would be much more interested in hers, she had such a fun and exciting childhood!! For us we just stopped at the observation view point for a few quick selfies, yes we were those tacky people with the selfie stick! Honestly between my GoPro, her giant Cannon camera, my big Nikon, our cell phones, and Bessie her shitty but cute Polaroid camera that her parents had gotten her for graduation, we had our hands full in the camera department. We quickly decided that we would not be able to bring ALL of these cameras along on our hikes over the next few weeks. But I digress, Mount Shasta was beautiful! The top was covered with snow that looked pristine and untouched by man. There was a large beautiful bird that kept flying around the top as we were taking pictures, it was almost as if he was posing for us! He was too far for us to be able to identify though, we should pick up some binoculars for the rest of the trip, but he made for some great pictures!

When we felt we had taken enough pictures we set off again. We ended up making one more unplanned stop just before getting to the California/Oregon border...did y'all know there was a town called Weed, California?! Because we certainly did not! Naturally we had to stop and check out the gift shop, I mean how could you not! Contrary to what you might think they do not sell weed in Weed, California..well at least not that we saw from our brief 10 minute visit to the gift shop. We got a bunch of post cards and stickers and such for all of our 420 loving friends. According to their "Welcome to Weed" sign, it used to be an old lumber town. Now it seems to be a tourist stop with this gift shop being their only attraction, it was still a fun stop though!

FINALLY we made it to the border! The sign was actually really pretty, and as I'm sure you can imagine we had quite the photo shoot right there on the side of the highway. I lost count at the amount of honks and catcalls we received. It's so nice having Haley on this trip because she's just as crazy about pictures as I am so there will definitely not be a shortage of photos from this trip! Eventually we got back in Penny and headed for Crater Lake. Driving through Oregon was gorgeous, we hadn't even made it to the park yet and I was already in love with this state! The scenery was beautiful and the wildlife was abundant. We even saw a bald eagle which was really cool, we were so in awe that surprisingly neither of us managed to get a picture! Shocking I know!!

Well we eventually made it to Crater Lake National Park and holy crap! I really think it's the most beautiful place I've ever seen in real life! I mean these pictures hardly do it justice. There was snow in all the right places so the contrast in colors with the dark blue water, light blue sky, green trees, and white snow just made the whole place look unreal. As we were driving through the park the lake itself was hidden behind a wall of beautiful trees. We saw a slight break in the trees at one point so we pulled off to explore. I was shocked by all the snow that was still on the ground, in fact we were unable to camp because the campsites weren't open yet due to all the snow. Here we are in our cute little Lulu Lemon workout tanks and cropped yoga pants trekking through knee deep snow...clearly we weren't very prepared for this! Thankfully in most places the snow was solid enough to walk on and with the sun shining bright it really wasn't that cold. While I was distracted taking pictures Haley explored a bit and found an even better vantage point...right on the edge of the cliff. One wrong move and we'd get to see just how cold that water was, if we survived the fall that is! Thankfully we managed to get our pictures and enjoy the view without any casualties. It was really a shame that we couldn't camp though because I was definitely not ready to leave this view! I wanted to string up my hammock and take in the scenery till night fall. I can absolutely guarantee I'll be coming back here though that's for sure! Below are a few of our many pictures, including some impromptu yoga at the entrance sign, Haley catching me mid selfie (I have no shame), Penny surrounded by snow (she deserves a cameo since lets be real this trip would not be happening if it wasn't for her!), oh ya and that absolutely GORGEOUS lake!! Next stop Portland!!