At the end of the day, President Barack Obama and his family did the things virtually everyone else wants to do when they visit Yellowstone National Park: do a little fishing, visit Old Faithful, and get away from it all.

After a public town hall in Bozeman discussing health care on Friday, the First Family spent the morning and half of the afternoon at Yellowstone after staying overnight at a private residence in Big Sky. 

The Obama visit was billed by the White House as a private visit, and sure enough there was no photo ops or meetings with Yellowstone visitors. Obama spent Friday afternoon fly-fishing at O'Dell Creek (over by Ennis) with press secretary Robert Gibbs and White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina, a Montana native. The president came up empty after a few strikes, but Gibbs and Messina both landed two rainbow trout. By contrast, First Lady Michelle Obama and the Obama's two daughters chose to raft down a secluded river in the area.

On Saturday the group first toured Black Sand Basin -- which was closed to the public -- and then drove to the Old Faithful Inn area for the 12:16 p.m. eruption of Old Faithful. There was no interaction between the Obamas and the crowd of a thousand around Old Faithful: they went directly to a cordoned-off area and left soon after the geyser erupted.

And, like so many other visitors, he and his family ended the visit with an ice-cream cone. Alas, not huckleberry. 

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