Yellowstone National Park

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Yellowstone is the granddaddy of them all, the world's first national park. This is the one everyone wants to go to and for good reason: It's huge, and it's a very nice park.

Hello, sun

At 2.2 million acres, Yellowstone is the largest park we've been to so far (but nowhere near the largest national park of all). A person could easily spend a week at Yellowstone and not repeat anything. We had two full days as a family, and we packed both of them to the brim.

The park can be divided roughly into five sections, each one corresponding to one of the five entrances. The experiences available differ in each of the five sections. We actually went to the park from two different campsites in two different states, which tells you a bit about how big it is.

Our first campsite was near the west entrance, which happens to be the most popular. This is the entrance closest to Old Faithful, though we didn't actually visit the famous geyser from there. Instead we headed to the northwest section of the park, away from the crowds and towards the section of the park known for abundant wildlife. In theory. Turns out we didn't actually see too much wildlife on our visit, but we did get to check off bear (both black and grizzly, which is a form of brown bear), bison, coyote, red fox, and elk. The elk was a last minute win on our way out of the park. We caught one eating by the side of the road. The wolves are the real prize, but we didn't see any.

Of the things we saw, the red fox is definitely my favorite. We've seen a few of them on our trip, and they are fun to watch. They aren't terribly afraid of people, so they just go about their business while you are there.


Our next campsite was near the south entrance. It was from this entrance that we visited the geyser basin. The landscape is truly bizarre. There is steam coming of the earth. There is water shooting out of the earth... sometimes randomly, sometimes regularly. There is near boiling water pouring into a cold river. There is bubbling mud. I just kept wondering what the first people to see this stuff must have thought. Honestly, the first person to see it probably died trying to get a closer look. These things are dangerous, as the signs everywhere warn.



Despite its name, Old Faithful isn't even the most regular geyser in the park. But it has the right combination of regularity, size, and easy accessibility to make it famous. Whenever it erupts, a ranger updates a whiteboard with a prediction for the next eruption, +/- 10 minutes (this happens for a half dozen or so of the more famous geysers). It went off exactly at the predicated time while we were there.

It lived up to its name during our visit

We capped our visit with dinner at the Yellowstone Inn, a beautiful structure made largely from rough logs. I'd love to say we planned this, but no; we were just short on time and wanted to get food into the kids before we hopped in the van for a long drive back to the campsite. The Inn was there, and they had availability. They ran a buffet, which just blew the kids' minds. They loved it! Julie and I did too.

Happy birthday to me!


Location: Yellowstone National Park, United States

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