This morning we both awoke thinking the other was snoring extremely loudly. A quick look outside the tent windows explained the noise - a largish herd of Bison walking through the campground! It was pretty cool seeing them walk through the campground basically ignoring the tents, cars and people taking photos in their pajamas! We were still basically asleep so didn't think to grab the camera. It was a much milder morning, but it had been a pretty wild night. We got a fair amount of rain and the wind was strong with gusts trying to blow our tent away. Despite this we were both toasty warm in our new thermals and more comfortable on a stable inflatable bed - much more comfortable then either a deflated mattress or a thin mat.
After a quick breakfast we again headed to Old Faithful after stopping a few times to allow Bison to stroll across the road and also to take a short walk at some more springs and geysers. Old Faithful put on its normal show - a bit longer and more energetic than yesterday and we headed out to do some short hikes. The first hike we came to was actually closed off due to bears coming out of hibernation - we decided it was wiser not to ignore the signs and moved on! As we headed towards the next spot we were going to hike, the heavens opened and we decided to return to camp to sit it out.
We had gotten a few drops of rain in the tent the night before but while resting in the tent we discovered a few spots where water was leaking in. Damien adjusted the fly to see if this was the problem but the leaks continued. It wasn't too much water coming in but the rain had slowed down a lot. After waiting a little while, there was no improvement to the inside of the tent despite the raining slowing even more. With further rain, snow and thunderstorms predicted for the next few days, we made the sad decision to "abandon" camp and headed to West Yellowstone and a dry Hotel. As I was writing this the Hotel was rocked (almost literally) by a huge clap of thunder so those predictions look pretty accurate.
We plan to return to Yellowstone tomorrow and hopefully do some hiking if the weather isn't too bad and then continue North a day earlier than planned.