We had talked about getting out at 6:00 in order to make it into the park when the Visitor Centers opened at 8:00, but I was tired and didn’t want to get up at 5:00 to make that happen. So I got up at 7:00, and we got out at 9:00, though it only took an hour and a half to get back to the park (nighttime speed limits are lower in Montana, so we were able to make better time in the morning).
Sam had his clothes set out on the floor of the closet, which was next to the bathroom. For some reason, water leaked all through the carpet, soaking his clothes. They were sopping wet. Since he had only packed four shirts and that was his last one, Meghan and I only had “women’s cut” shirts, and Ruby’s were all too small, Sam had to wear one of John’s shirts. One of John’s XL shirts. He tucked it in and wore a jacket over it until it got too hot, and then just wore a huge shirt.
The north entrance to Yellowstone in Gallatin, MT has this wonderful grand arch.
 |
| Across the top it says: "For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People" On the left: "Yellowstone National Park" On the right: "Created by Act of Congress March 1, 1872" |
The route we planned out was to come in from the north entrance and make our way down the west side of the park loop, stopping at anything we wanted to on the right side of the road until we got to Old Faithful, then to turn around and go back up the west side, stopping at things on the other side of the road, then heading over the north part of the loop, hitting the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and the waterfalls before leaving out of the East Entrance. And that’s exactly what we did!
Click here to go to a large map of the park.
I know, don’t pass out, we followed our plan. At least part of it. We just took much, much longer than we talked about. We each had a “must-see” item, so we focused on making sure those happened.
Right when we entered the park, there were elk grazing in the middle of all the buildings, the Visitor Center, the post office and everything! It was a perfect start to a visit in Yellowstone.
It took a while to get into the park and we decided to eat lunch before we started looking at things. Luck shone down on us when we were looking for a place to eat. After driving past a couple of picnic areas with no tables free, we drove down the little road marked “Fountain Flat Drive” and found a quiet little picnic area with only one other family there and had a nice quiet lunch away from everyone.
 |
| See how secluded this picnic area was? |
The first thing we stopped to see was the Norris Geyser Basin. We were expecting huge crowds and we were not disappointed. We couldn’t even find a parking spot, and John had to drop us off and drive around looking for one. We walked the loop on the boardwalk and it was so exciting to see everything bubbling and blopping and steaming and shooting. The colors were bright and my camera didn’t seem to be capturing it, until I used the “vivid color” setting, which to my eye made the colors on the camera match was I was seeing in person.
 |
| Ruby at Norris Geyser Basin. She absolutely loved all the geysers. |
 |
| The colors are amazing! |
Fortunately, after that crowd, we found the rest of the park to be remarkably un-crowded. There were lots of people everywhere, but we weren’t driving five miles an hour in a long line of cars all day. Just when there were animals around. And then people turned into idiots.
We took a drive down Firehole Canyon Drive and saw the pretty Firehole Falls along the Firehole River in the canyon.
Next, we stopped at the Lower Geyser Basin, home of the Fountain Paint Pot and then on to the Midway Geyser Basin, home of the Grand Prismatic Spring, which was featured on the cover of National Geographic a couple of months ago, and which was Meghan’s “must-see” item. It was gorgeous. Unbelievably so. We were all very impressed. Lots of other pretty pools in this area.
 |
| Grand Prismatic Spring. |
It does these little spurts when it’s getting ready for the big spectacular blow, and after each one of those, the kids said, “Is that it? Is is done? I think that’s it.” And I kept telling them, you’ll know when it’s going off, trust me. And sure enough, they did.
 |
| Old Faithful, being faithful. |
 |
| The kids watching the geyser. |
 |
| Sam. In his dad's shirt. Old Faithful was dying down by this point. |
 |
| Ruby in her own shirt. |
 |
| My kids. |
By this time it was getting late in the afternoon and we had to be getting along, so we drove back down the west side and visited the Artist Paintpots before heading east along the north part of the loop.
 |
| Artist Paintpots. It's spelled like that on the map. |
We stopped at Canyon Village to get a stamp and ice before heading to the North Rim Drive to view the Lower Falls in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River. On the way we made a wrong turn and pulled into a driveway near some cabins to turn around and I spotted a black bear walking through the trees! One other car of people was there, and a few people came running down from the cabins to see, including one woman dressed only in a towel and hiking boots! At first we thought she had a bathing suit on, but then we noticed that she was very diligent about keeping it closed and pulled down. It was kind of funny. Anyway, we were among the first ones to see it, so there weren’t may people around getting in the way and we were able to get a picture and get away before a crowd formed.
 |
| Da bear. |
Eventually we made it to the Canyon and walked down the path to the viewing point. This whole area is just stunning. It was also John’s “must-see”.
 |
| Lower Falls. |
 |
| They're so cute. Note that Sam's shirt actually fits him. |
And as much as we wanted to stick around and explore some more, we still had a long drive ahead of us and needed to get going. On the way back around to the exit, we ran across a big herd of bison in the Hayden Valley. There was a little calf standing right next to the road.
We left out of the East Entrance and headed east along US-14 to meet up with I-90 right around Sheridan, WY. Google said this was the fastest way to get to Spearfish, SD, our stop for the night. It did not say that we would have to go through every mountain in the state. We didn’t see any other cars or people or anything for hours. Hours! We were in the middle of nowhere. We were on the Bighorn Scenic Byway, but since it was the middle of the night, we didn’t see anything but the road twisting in front of us. It was 4:00 a.m. before we got in, and we were tired (by “we”, I mean John and me, the kids were asleep the whole time). I didn’t get to sleep until 5:00.
Oh, and if you’re wondering about my “must-see”? A moose. We didn’t see one, and my moose jammies ended up being too small, so Meghan got them :(
:(. But everything else was cool!
ReplyDelete