Yellowstone National Park - Day 8

Sulphur Caldron
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We woke up as meat popsicles. No, for real, it got down below freezing the night before, as in things were actually frozen, and by the time we were up and about breaking down camp, it was a balmy 33 degrees, and WET. Everything was wet – at least outside of our tent – and trying to break down camp when its cold and wet is miserable.

Our first stop after breaking down camp was the camping supplies store. We were simply not expecting below freezing temperature on our trip, and we were still miserable from the breakdown, so we bought hats and gloves and thermal wicking undershirts. We’ll be stopping at a real sporting goods store on our way to Reno later today to see if we can’t find Dove a warmer coat; the GorTex coat we have is great as a windbreaker and rain coat but doesn’t provide enough warmth to act as a late fall/early winter coat. We figured adding a Polar Tec fleece under it, coupled with thermal underwear and a long sleeve shirt should do it. Neither of us, we also realized, have suitable warm pants either – jeans are NOT going to cut in weather such as this.

Mud Volcano
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Driving along the Grand Loop we hit Sulfur Cauldron first, and then Mud Volcano. Cool stuff to see but still being sore from yesterday’s hike we stayed close to the car and didn’t cover the entire trails marked out.

We made our way to Old Faithful, which gave us a nice show, then over to see the Grand Prismic Spring which was gorgous. Then, on the road again!