Yellowstone National Park

This 6 hour drive was rough but we did it with minimal stops and lunch at McDonald’s.

Google Maps thought it would do us a favor by leading us through a gravel road in rural Montana.  The road was uneven and littered with huge potholes. We had to go really slow since we were towing the trailer.

By the time we got to the KOA in West Yellowstone, some of the hanging cabinets became loose from all the shaking. Jared and his drill came to the rescue and tightened all of them.

We had a lot of housekeeping to do so we started with setting up camp.

Our new neighbors were pretty talkative so we spent some time with them chit chatting about being from California. They now live in Washington but their son lives in Bakersfield.

Day 1 in the Park:

Our first day in the park was a long one. The first thing we learned was although there were multiple signs along that road that warned people not to:

1. Stop in the middle of the road.
2. Approach wildlife.
3. Walk off the paths.

People were going to do whatever they wanted to do.

Not 5 minutes into the park we were stopped. There were cars lined up taking pictures of a bison laying around. It was our first time seeing a bison but we continued on because there were too many cars along the road any way.

We were on our way to see some geysers and hot springs!

Finding parking was also a mess but we got pretty lucky. We stopped at the Lower Geyser Basin first because we could see some eruptions from the road. Everything was so surreal. We couldn’t really grasp how nature made this.

We stopped at the Grand Prismatic Pool (the largest spring in the world). The bacteria mats were really cool because you can see that some things can survive in extreme temperatures.

We couldn’t really see the full pool from our perspective so we climbed up a trail to the new look out spot.

We were rewarded with a gorgeous view of the entire pool. You could see vibrant colors of yellow, blue, orange, and green.

The Midway Geyser Basin where Old Faithful resides. We were really excited because this is the most famous part of the park. There were crowds of people waiting for the eruption so we didn’t get a seat. Yellowstone in general was pretty crowded. Lots of tourists from Europe and Asia.

The predictions for Old Faithful were pretty spot on so that in itself is pretty incredible.

When we were there, the next eruption was predicted to be at 3:44PM (give or take 10 minutes) and it erupted around 3:49PM.

There were so many geysers in the area! We were even lucky enough to see the Beehive Geyser erupt and it only erupts every 12 hours.

Castle Geyser was also a spectacular view!

We continued on to the West Thumb Basin, which is right along the Yellowstone Lake.

Jared was staring into the Abyss Pool.

Yellowstone lake was huge!

An elk also wanted to check out the views.

As you can see, people were getting too close to the wildlife.

The sun was setting so we were gifted with a beautiful view.

Day 2 in the Park:

Our first stop was the Norris Geyser Basin. We got to see the Steamboat Geyser (largest active geyser in the world).

After seeing most of the geysers in the basin, we continued on to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

It was like out of a story. The landscape was beautiful. We still couldn’t believe we were there.

We had hiked down to the Lower Yellowstone Falls and were delighted by the views. It just doesn’t seem real.

We walked down to see Lower Yellowstone Falls from a different angle.

It was great!

We stopped at Otter Creek to have lunch. It’s not your usual packed lunch because we got so sick of sandwiches.

So we brought some leftover enchiladas and a cup noodle.

While we ate, we heard some soft grunts. We thought we were hearing things since no one else seemed to notice. Until they got really loud. At first, I thought it was a bear and our delicious lunch was attracting it but we learned that it was a buffalo on the hill across the river.

From there, we went to Hayden Valley for wildlife sightseeing!

“What did the buffalo say to his son when he left for college?”

“Bison.”

There were quite a few people right off the road looking at something so we just had to stop. We learned that there was a deer carcass out by the water but it was so far out our little binoculars barely had a chance. Everyone told us a white wolf was out eating a while ago and they were just waiting for more predators to come by. They were so determined there would be a grizzly coming by soon, so we waited with them for at least 25 minutes. After that, we didn’t want to wait any longer.

We continued on to the heart of the valley.

It was beautiful! We saw some bison hanging out and eating.

On our way out of the valley, there were still some people out looking at the carcass. We decided to stop again and see if there was anything new. It seemed like everyone was still waiting and we’ve been gone for about an hour. Some people were just dedicated. We hung around hoping for a glimpse of something but started to lose hope. A park ranger came by to check on things and just made sure we weren’t too close to the animals.

We got in our car and left but we noticed that just a few yards down, people were way more enthusiastic in such a short amount of time. We got out and heard that a grey wolf was out there with the carcass. We couldn’t see a thing besides some dark movements from our binoculars but one very generous lady was letting people look through her scope. And oh boy, you can see the wolf so close just eating. It was so majestic!

We were lucky we didn’t leave any sooner or else we would have missed it.

It definitely made our day.

Day 3 in the Park:

We were off to see more hot springs in Mammoth Hot Springs.

On our way there, we saw a huge geyser erupt from miles away. It was way over the trees so we knew it could only be Steamboat Geyser. It was amazing, especially since we could see it from miles away and it went on for awhile.

The Hot Springs in Mammoth were pretty interesting since they grew in terraces and they keep growing!

We stopped at the Albright Visitor Center and had a blast!

There was a herd of elk hanging out along the road.

The visitor center was filled with so much information and horns.

It also had an extensive exhibit on the history of Yellowstone. The visitor center is located where the US Army built their barracks and had their base of operations in protecting the beauty that was Yellowstone National Park.

Before officials got a handle on protecting the natural beauty of Yellowstone, there were poachers hunting the buffalo (which left only 25 pure buffalo in the Yellowstone area), individuals made a profit diverting the waters of hot springs for baths, and laundry was done in the hot springs. People just didn’t know how to preserve these natural wonders.

We went to the Yellowstone River Picnic Area and had lunch. We had a nice cup noodle lunch before we decided to go on the little hike by the picnic area. We had great views of cliffs.

It was worth the extra hike to get to see these views.

Lamar Valley was definitely worth the long drive.

There were hundreds of bison! Excuse all the bison pictures, I couldn’t help myself.

They were crossing the roads so we were extremely close to these huge animals.

Some people got frustrated and tried to go around a few cars but they just got stuck behind some buffalo.

We were glad these animals who’ve roamed these valleys for thousands of years were still here.

Bison are so cool! 

We saw some pronghorns and some black wolves as well. We didn’t have access to a cool scope to see these close up but they were some cool black smudges on our binoculars. You could tell they weren’t bison because they were smaller and protecting a dead bison carcass.

We were a little disappointed we didn’t see a bear but we got to see many other animals.

On our way to our next destination (Grand Teton National Park), we got to drive through Yellowstone one last time.