Today is Thursday, and as such, it’s a great time to do Throwback Thursday posts!  So I’d like to give you a look at Old Faithful in the Upper Geyser Basin from each of my visits to Yellowstone National Park, 1995-2023!  Enjoy!

We saw Old Faithful spout water three times on our first visit in 1995.  I thought it was the coolest thing ever!

Our second visit was in 1999, and we saw the eruption from both ground level and Observation Point.  I had my own camera for the first time, but since it used film, I was careful to only take pictures that were good (or something like that!)

In 2001, we visited Yellowstone in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  Yes, we got more than a few stares (and law enforcement following our every move) due to our New York license plate!

Our trip in June 2003 will always stand out in my mind as an awesome adventure.  We had no clue where we were going when we left home, but Yellowstone somehow made it onto the itinerary.

We took a few years off and finally returned in 2009 en route to the Pacific Northwest.  President Obama and his family were going to visit in a few days, so we enjoyed watching helicopters going through moves as part of security training for the president’s tour of the park.

I really wanted to tour Newfoundland, Labrador, and Nova Scotia in 2012.  But schedules got in the way, so the wilds around Yellowstone became an excellent substitute.  One of the great things that came out of our postponed trip was the creation of bug screens for the van.  I read that the trans-Labrador Highway has terrible mosquito issues, especially at night, so we reaped the benefits even if we didn’t have to live with the reality!

On our way home from Oregon in 2016, two of my brothers asked if we could see Old Faithful.  They figured that since we’d be visiting on their free 4^th grade national park passes, they had some right to say where we would stop on our way home (they could have just asked, but hey, it worked out fine).

After exploring Glacier National Park in 2019, we needed to drop down to I-80 to get home.  A detour through Yellowstone seemed like fun, even if the day was cloudy and we were pelted with hail while waiting for Daisy Geyser to erupt.

And then there’s 2023.  Instead of passing through or hiking the highlights, we spent eleven days exploring almost every day-hikeable trail that Yellowstone has to offer.  It was great fun, with so many exclamation points… but we still found time to see Old Faithful!

For more information about the Upper Geyser Basin, including how to get there and other geysers to explore in the area, visit this post.

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