When we woke up in Bear Lake it was FREEZING! By the time we packed up camp and checked the external temperature in the car it was 40 degrees, but we’re sure it was below freezing… We ended up leaving camp earlier than scheduled because we wanted to meet up with some friends in Jackson, Wyoming. It worked out because we got an early start to our day and it was nice to watch the sunrise over Bear Lake and have an open road ahead of us!
We drove to Jackson, WY to meet our high school friend, Brad, for breakfast. Our other friend, Tom, was going to join, but he was working 🙁 It’s so nice to be able to see so many of our friends along the way and get to share this trip with them!
After a quick, but AMAZING breakfast stop at Parsippany in Jackson, we drove through Grand Teton National Park on our way to Yellowstone National Park. Like in Colorado, the mountains still had a fair amount of snow and ice at the peaks, and we still think it’s so crazy to see this in the middle of the summer! We definitely recommend taking the west side of the loop at Moose Junction if you only have time to do one side…the views of Jenny Lake and Jackson Lake with the mountain backdrop was breathtaking.
We entered through the south entrance of Yellowstone National Park and went to the Grant Village visitor center where we found out that Old Faithful will be erupting in just over an hour (it erupts every 90 minutes or so)…we couldn’t miss it!
We got to Old Faithful early and found a spot front and center, where we waited…and waited…and waited until nature took its course. It was amazing to watch the different stages and intensities of eruption from the Earth’s surface!
Next up was Midway Geyser Basin, which houses a few different natural springs…two of which were specifically on our list (Excelsior and Grand Prismatic). We walked around the boardwalk to see everything, and as I saw the all the lost hats in the Geyser, I began to hold onto mine for dear life (it was VERY windy). The colors that filled these waters were so beautiful, shades of orange, red, blue, green…and all because of bacteria (of course Joey loves this part)!
Along the road in Yellowstone, there is so much wildlife to see! We saw things from bison, elk, and wolves, just grazing and passing by! We were told that the best times to see them is in the morning and evening, which makes sense because that’s when they’re feeding. I didn’t get to see any moose like I wanted to…but I guess I can wait until Glacier National Park and hopefully we see them there!
We headed for Madison campground, on the west side of the park, to set up camp. Although we are staying at Yellowstone for two nights, we’re staying at two different campgrounds at opposite sides of the camp. We wanted to experience two different communities here at Yellowstone and thought this would be a cool way to do so because each campground area is its own little village. The west side of the park is jam packed with natural springs and geysers. The east, however, has the Grand Canyon, both Upper and Lower Falls, and a ton of valley acreage to view wildlife.
After we set up our tent and settled in, we went back out to explore the park a little more. We drove the Firehole Canyon Drive to see Firehole Falls, which was beautiful but apparently these aren’t even the best of Yellowstone’s falls (we’ll have to wait for tomorrow on the east side of the park)!
We also did the Firehole Lake Drive and spotted more geysers and pools with beautiful colors! This was a nice drive because it seemed quieter than Yellowstone’s main attractions. At some springs and geysers, it seemed like we were the only ones there!
We ended our day with Lower Geyser Basin, which is right across the main road from Firehole Lake Drive. This brought us to more geysers and Red Spouter, which I called “Yellowstone’s doors to hell.” It was basically a giant steam vent in the earth’s surface that literally ROARED as it spouted out its steam! The noise it made was frightening.
We decided to call it a day after Lower Geyser Basin because we still had an entire day ahead of us, and Yellowstone is DEFINITELY a multi-day park! Like I said earlier, we’ll spend tomorrow on the east side of the park at Canyon Village (appropriately named because of its proximity to Yellowstone’s Grand Canyon!).