The World's First National Park

Sharon and I had 3 days in Yellowstone, which was great because it was such a massive park. On Monday, August 5th, we woke up and went white water rafting on the Yellowstone River.  The rapids were pretty good, and we got to try riding on the nose of the raft, which was called “riding the bull.” Later that day, we went into Yellowstone and arrived at Mammoth Hot Springs. A storm came rolling through so we had to wait out the rain for a bit before we could see the hot springs. Sharon has been really excited to see Mammoth Hot Springs for a while, and they turned out to be very cool. After we left Mammoth, we drove further south into Yellowstone and stopped at Roaring Mountain and the Fumaroles at Porcelain Basin. Then on our way to Bridge Bay campground, we got held up by our first  bison jam in the Hayden valley! It was awesome to see bison crossing the road right in front of us!

On Tuesday morning, we woke up and drove to Hayden Valley at 5:30 AM to look for wildlife. We ended up being too early because the fog in the valley didn’t clear until about 7. However, it was fun listening to the bison through the fog and then seeing them all appear as the fog lifted. We watched the bison for about 2 hours and then drove to Artists Paint Pot trail. After that, we drove to Gibbon Falls before making our way to Midway Geyser Basin. There we saw Grand Prismatic Spring up close, and hiked Fairy Falls trail to the overlook for a better view. Finally, we went to Old Faithful and watched the geyser go off on the second floor of the historic lodge. We walked around a few more of the hot springs and got some huckleberry ice cream before heading back to the campsite for the night. 

On Wednesday, we woke up early again and drove to Lamar Valley to search for more wildlife. We had heard there were typically more animals there. There were a ton of bison, and a couple pronghorn, but unfortunately no herds of elk.  We had planned to hike Mount Washburn after that but the trails were closed which was actually nice because we were both exhausted from the previous two days. Instead, we went to Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and took some photos at some of the overlooks. On our way back toward the campground we stopped at a spring called the Mud Volcano, and then went to Fishing Bridge so I could get the house RV battery checked out. I ended up getting a new battery because the current one was pretty old and not holding a charge very well. I should’ve done that much earlier in my trip, but at least now I don’t have to worry about it.  I also got my mud flap put back on, since it had fallen off a few days earlier. Back at the campsite we started walking toward the boat dock but ended up stopping to watch two big elk eating on the side of the road! Sharon finally found me some bucks after I had been dying to see a big one all week! 

We saw a ton of stuff in Yellowstone and got a bunch of pictures, so I’ll upload some as soon as I can!