Yellowstone: the world's first national park

Yellowstone is such a unique place. I wouldn't say it was the prettiest place I've ever been (although don't get me wrong, it is pretty), but it does have an incredible amount of thermal features and wildlife. It is one of those places that you have to go at some point in your life, but I don't feel the need to go back for awhile.
I think the easiest way is to just go by day so that I remember everything we did.

Day 1:
We drove into the park through the west entrance, which was very scenic. We picked up groceries and firewood in Cody (which was a good idea, so much cheaper than inside the park!) The first night we got into the park around 6 and to our campsite on the shore of Yellowstone Lake around 7. We saw a big-horned ram on our way into the park!

Day 2:
We headed toward yellowstone canyon, which was just awesome. Huge waterfalls and beautifully colored rock walls. We ended up hiking down one rim around to the other and back again. It was probably close to a 5 hour walk, and after we were exhausted. I would say that there were some parts of the hike we could have skipped, but it was nice to not just drive from overlook to overlook.

After we hiked we ate a quick lunch and stopped to take a shower and then just headed over to our next campsite at Madison. The Madison campsite was not as nice as the bridge bay campsite by the lake. However, it was very conveniently located. 

Day 3: We drove north to mammoth hot springs which are where boiling water comes out of the earth and colors the rocks and creates interesting formations due to the minerals in the water. Before we explored the rocks we did a hike called beaver creek trail. It was okay, supposed to see some wildlife and we didn't see much, but did get some nice views of the hills. It would have been better if it hadn't started to rain when we were about 20 minutes away from the end. It was a cold rain and I had to pee. Hiking with a guy that can just pee wherever he wants is really frustrating...

After the hike we explored the hot springs. It was interesting, but not my favorite. After that we stopped to eat at a nice lunch spot and on our way back south we passed a ton of cars on the side of the road. They were all stopped to look at a grizzly and her two cubs in the field. It was a great bear interaction. They were close enough that you were in awe of their size, but far enough away that it wasn't scary. 

We also stopped at norris which is a geyser basin, with lots of mud pots and hot springs. It was again - okay - not my favorite. 

Day 4: Old Faithful! of course we had to go to old faithful. Our start was delayed by having to wait for a herd of bison to cross the road - it took forever! We made it to old faithful area and realized we were just in time to see Castle erupt - it was awesome. Huge and came with a lot of steam. Right before it started, Chris realized he had dropped his phone somewhere, which became a bit of a distraction - needless to say. We then had to go back to the visitors center and ask if they had his phone. They didn't, but said that it just might not have been turned in yet, and to check back later. It was made more difficult because my phone didn't get good service, so we couldn't call it. 

We decided to not let it ruin the day and went ahead and saw the next Geyser, Daisy, erupt. Then we walked through the boardwalk and were trying to get back to old faithful in time to see it, but we didn't get as close as we planned, because we found out another geyser which isn't regular was about to erupt. So we stopped at a place we could see both old faithful and beehive and got to see them both erupt at the same time. It was a little overwhelming, trying to get photos of both at once!

Then we stopped at a gift shop because we wanted to get some beers to have with lunch ( I wanted my old faithful ale at old faithful!) but the gift shop was in complete disarray and we had to wait in line for like 30 minutes before we were finally checked out. So frustrating, because everything was on a tight schedule. We headed back to the car to make lunch and chris went to go check on his phone. He came back and told me that a park ranger had his phone at the old faithful inn and he was going to go get it. That was such a relief, so I finished our sandwiches and met up with him. We ate as we bustled over to the next geyser. There were two geysers that were going to go off close to each other. Giant geyser and riverside geyser. We decided to go watch riverside (since it was supposed to go first) - but it wasn't that impressive because the wind was blowing it away from the river. While it was going off, Giant erupted so we missed it. I think Chris was disappointed, but overall we got to see a lot of geysers that day. 

Then we had to wait and see old faithful go off. I was cranky because of the heat, so I stayed in the visitors center to cool off, while Chris went to get some gas. We were able to get a good seat for old faithful, and it is just amazing. I'm so glad we waited to see it go off. 

We were tired and decided to go see some of the other themal spots around old faithful. We saw some cool hot spring pools. We also hit up west thumb, which is a region of hot springs and mud pools right next to yellowstone lake. This was beautiful, probably the best thermal area in yellowstone besides old faithful. 

That night we went out at dusk to look for wildlife. We "just" saw a herd of deer and some bison, but we saw a beautiful full moon right next to beautiful mountains. Just incredible in person, and something that a camera really can't capture, but we sure did try. 

Day 5: We woke up and headed out of the park and down to Grand Teton National Park. More on that later!

To see the links to all of my travels click here.