Category: National Parks

The parking lot for Old Faithful is massive.  We were not sure where we should go, but then we saw a large crowd, and Old Faithful was erupting right as we arrived!

Afterward we went to the Visitor Center.

The kids earned their Junior Ranger Badges.  There is a different badge for each age category.

The next eruption was due at 12:02 so we had a little time to kill.  (We wanted to see it again, from the beginning.)  We watched the movie in the visitor center theater.

D graciously offered to buy us sandwiches at the General Store while the kids and I saved our viewing spot.  There are benches all around Old Faithful, and there are no bad seats!

The eruption starts off slow…It really is amazing how accurate its timing is.

Massage time.

D offered some comedic relief to everyone around us by counting down from ten seconds at the predicted time, and adding, “3 and a half…3…2 and a half…” etc. when there was still no eruption.

But, about five minutes after the predicted time, Old Faithful did her thing.

Won’t that be a sad day if/when Old Faithful stops being so faithful?

Afterward, we walked along the boardwalk to see the neighboring sights.

Our next stop was the Old Faithful Lodge, where we sampled Huckleberry and Mango ice cream.

The double scoop was quite large, more like four scoops, which all four of us shared.  The family in front of me ordered six double scoops, one for each member in their family, which included small children.  Is that normal, or are we the weird ones?

The second story of the lodge had a nice seating area, and provided us with some much-needed shady respite.

The overnight low was in the high 30’s, but we had enough blankets, sleeping bags and clothing to keep warm.  We packed up our campsite since we had another reservation in a different part of the park the next day.  After eating our oatmeal, fruit and granola bars, we drove to Gibbon Falls.  It was nice to be pretty close to the waterfall without hiking!

Our next stop was Lower Geyser Basin, along Firehole Lake Drive, which we could see off to the distance during our drive.

Next on the itinerary was Midway Geyser Basin.  Before the trip, I downloaded a Yellowstone app on my phone.  We listened to a brief overview of the sights we were going to see along the way.  I thought it was well worth $3.  (There are much more extensive and expensive audio tours available for rent, but given our kids’ short attention span, the app was the way to go for us).

I was really excited to see the Grand Prismatic Spring.

The light blue steam was so cool, especially in contrast to the orange basin.

Up next: Old Faithful!

Did you know that Yellowstone has their own Grand Canyon?

There’s even a waterfall at one end!

n needed a lot of breaks during this stop because he claimed he was “stiff and sore”.

As you can see, we made the most of our first day in Yellowstone.  At night, the kids worked on their junior ranger booklets at the campsite.

D demonstrating how skinny some of the trees were.

n enjoyed reading Bible stories to us at night and asking the questions at the end.

The bathrooms were clean, in case anyone is curious!

The sun stays up for so long up there!  This is what it looked like at 9 p.m. (I had k put up nine fingers so we would remember the time).  Since we went to bed just after 9 p.m., we never even saw the stars!

We did not drive too far out into Lamar Valley because we were all getting tired of sight-seeing.  On the way back we saw another herd of bison.  After this sighting, we did not stop anymore to look at the bison because they were so ubiquitous.  Instead, we were just like, “Oh, it’s just more bison…keep driving”.  Ha!

We did make a stop to see Tower Fall, which you can see after just a short walk from the parking lot.  Nice to see that there is still flowing water in other parts of the country!

More evidence of fires…

Next we went to the Canyon Village Visitor Education Center.

We attended a ranger talk about the “Dogs of Yellowstone”, which includes foxes, coyotes and wolves.

The visitors center had some fun exhibits.

There was also a nice theater where we watched a movie about Yellowstone.

Afterward, we checked into our campsite, which also was in Canyon Village.  We were so glad they have a reservation system!

Talk about a dense forest!

Our campsite was pretty spacious, and conveniently located across the street from the bathroom.

We ate dinner at the Canyon Cafeteria, and it was pretty bad.  I stood in line for a wrap, only to have the employee tell me, “This doesn’t look good, I wouldn’t feel right serving this to you.”  I appreciated her honesty and purchased a turkey sandwich even though I was pretty tired of sandwiches by that point.  We bought one kids meal which came with only two chicken strips and a handful of baby carrots.  I ended up buying a hot dog for them next door.  D  tried a bison sloppy joe, which was ok.  Overall, we were quite disappointed, especially considering that the food was still expensive!

After dinner, we looked for souvenirs, but did not purchase anything.

After lunch we drove towards Lamar Valley, eager to spot some more wildlife.  On our way there, there was a large herd of bison really close to the highway.

The baby bison, (calves?) were so cute!

A few of the bison even started to walk along the road!

At one of the visitor centers we saw a movie about the devastating fire that destroyed much of Yellowstone in the 1980’s.  At the time, much of the public was outraged by the park official’s stance to not actively fight the fire and let nature “run its course”.  While evidence of the fire remains, the new growth is really inspiring!

I had my camera in my hand at all times while D drove because there was so much beauty to attempt to capture!

Continuing our drive, we saw another group of people pulled off to the side of the road.  We were curious to see what they were looking at, and it turned out that the excitement was over a pair of big horned sheep!  Apparently, they are not a common sight, so that was fun, although they were pretty far away.  This is when my 20x zoom came in handy.

We saw a small parking lot along a river so we decided to pull-off.  The kids immediately began to collect rocks.

The kids took the opportunity to throw the rocks since they haven’t quite mastered skipping rocks yet.

God’s creation at that moment, in that space, was truly awe-inspiring.  I was getting a lump in my throat just taking it all in!

Our next stop was Mammoth Hot Springs.  There is a large visitor center and hotel and is a hub of tourist activity.  Waiting in line to pick up our junior ranger booklets, I was reminded that we were indeed in cowboy country!

You can’t really see it in the pictures, but there is water trickling down all of these rocks.

I loved the puffy clouds that day!

This guy was waiting for us to drop crumbs from our picnic lunch by the river.

The boxed lunch came with a sandwich, bag of chips, cookie, drink, apple, and piece of candy.  They also packaged the condiments, lettuce and tomatoes separately, which was nice.

It was nice to eat right by the water, but D and I received tons of mosquito bites!  The kids somehow managed to escape.

Our next stop was Norris Geyser Basin.  k’s funny stance was in response to my directive to not block the sign.

This sign reminded me of k and n…not that they would ever do that, of course.

Um…ouch?!

I tried to capture the vastness of the basin with a panoramic shot.

I love that pale blue color.

I would say that Norris Geyser Basin is a “must-see” on anyone’s Yellowstone itinerary.

The gates to Yellowstone are open 24 hours a day.  We needed to have an early start in order to see everything I had planned for our first day in the park.

The One Horse Motel had some interesting offerings for breakfast: oatmeal, coffee, packaged mini pastries, Costco chocolate chip granola bars, dum dums, etc.  I also picked up our boxed lunches from nearby Ernie’s Bakery & Deli.  I actually ordered and paid for the lunches online the week before, and they were ready and waiting for us!  I was quite impressed.

We also made a quick stop at Woodside Bakery because I had read rave reviews.

As I recall, we tried the cream cheese croissant, raspberry scone, and huckleberry muffin.  They were all quite light, which I am sure was due to the abundance of butter used.

The kids waited with D in the car while I purchased the pastries.  When I returned to the car, n asked, “Did you go to Big Gun Fun?”, which was right next door to the bakery.  Haha!

The drive into Yellowstone from the west side was amazing.  The river was right next to parts of the highway.

There were steam vents, or fumaroles, which made for some mystical scenery.

Our first stop inside the park was the Artists’ Paintpots Trail.

It was pretty chilly in the morning.  As soon as I took this picture, the small geyser behind them started gurgling a lot.  The kids joked that it must have been angry that I was trying to take a picture of it!

It was surreal to see steam rising everywhere.

Here are the paintpots (notice the different colors).

On our way to our next stop, we also spotted our first bison!  We joined a small group of people pulled over to the side of the road to get a closer look!

The road to West Yellowstone, Montana was quite scenic.

We checked into the One Horse Motel.  It was quite “rustic”, and not inexpensive, but it served our needs fine.  The kids thought it was hilarious that the toilet paper roll was so far away from the toilet.  There were only two double beds, but there was a fridge, microwave, television and wi-fi.  AND, there were no flies!  Yes!

For dinner, we ate at Wild West Pizzeria.  We ordered a side salad, macaroni and cheese and Canadian bacon pizza.  That was probably too much cheese for one meal, but they are known for their mac and cheese, so we had to try it.  The food was quite good, especially after subsisting on sandwiches, cup o’noodles and oatmeal.

I thought it was interesting that they had this sign in Chinese on the door of the pizzeria.  There were also numerous signs throughout the town that said “No Smoking” in Chinese.  There were quite a few Chinese tour buses in town and in Yellowstone.

West Yellowstone is small, and pedestrian-friendly, so we took a walk after dinner.  It stays light out really late, so it felt perfectly safe.

D and I had a good laugh about this KFC turned Pho restaurant.

There was also a park right outside the motel, which the kids enjoyed.

We also picked up a pint of ice cream, which was labeled as “Huckleberry” flavor.  I had read about the Wilcoxson’s brand beforehand, which is made in Montana.  However, when we tasted it, I thought it tasted an awful like little blueberries.  Sure enough, when we read the ingredients, it only contained blueberries, no huckleberries in sight!  That was a disappointment, although it did not stop us from enjoying the ice cream.