I grew up 3.5 hours from Yellowstone, went to college at BYUI for 3 years- only 1 hr from Yellowstone and until this year, I had never been. Well this summer we checked that item off the bucket list! Yellowstone was amazing! We stayed in condo in Island Park and just spent the second half of one day in plus the next entire day in Yellowstone but we packed a bunch in and had a great time! The first day we started out at Old Faithful with a bit of a long wait in the sun for the eruption but it was cool to see. Then we drove to the Biscuit basin and walked around. That ended up being one of my favorite spots with all of the different small geysers erupting right off the path one after the other. We went to the Grand Prismatic Spring and the area was really cool but unfortunately we couldn't find the right path to hike to get an overview look of the spring but it was still cool to look around the main area. It did stink really bad and Madi had to get past her distaste for outhouses after making me run down the hill and back up again to keep her from peeing her pants. But overall it was still pretty good! On our way out of the park we saw Elk and even a buffalo really close to the road. We pulled around to get a picture with it but made sure to keep some distance and stay close to a tree we could jump behind if needed. We got home late and put the kids to bed before catching some sleep ourselves!
We woke up early early the next morning for day 2 in the Park! We wanted to beat the crowds and it worked! It was great not having to deal with crowds and no parking spots all day but it did mean the first couple hours of the day were fairly chilly. We drove the upper loop day 2 and saw lots of waterfalls and wildlife. We also saw basins and springs and geysers. We saw valleys and mountains, it was really incredible! The coolest waterfall was the lower falls and there was a steep hike down to it with lots of switchback but the kids toughed it out and we made it down. The waterfall was huge and amazing and the valley it emptied into was awesome! It was probably one of my favorite things we did! While driving into the upper part of the mountains we pullled over to see a heard of buffalo moving in the distance and then a bit later saw a crowd gathered on the side of the road looking up a big hillside and realized it was a momma bear and three cubs climbing up the hill. We also saw a momma deer and two fawns on our drive. We did another hike to a water fall. This one was smaller and a flatter but further hike. Still really pretty to see. I was a bit worried about running into a bear on this one but we tried to make lots of noise and make sure the kids weren't going too far ahead.
Our last stop of the day was a pull out next to a river where the kids and Jon got out and played in the water a bit. I dipped my feet in and relaxed. We also discovered a thermal spring right next to the water in one spot with super hot water running into the river making it warm in that spot. That evening we went to dinner at a Mexican place in Island Park and the kids and I swam in the condo pool. The kids were mad that no kids were allowed in the hot tub, which I agree was weird, but otherwise they had fun..
I would love to go back to Yellowstone someday! Super cool place, glad we could go!
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