Yellowstone National Park is the first national park in the world to preserve its unique landscape and wide variety of wildlife. The Roosevelt Arch near the North entrance indicates "For the benefit and enjoyment of the people". Yellowstone National Park is quite a large national park. It crosses 3 different states including Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. It is one of the busiest national park in US.
We visited Yellowstone National Park during the week of Independence Day long weekend. It was a very long drive from Portland to Yellowstone. It took us about 13 hours to get to Yellowstone National Park, but we did this in 1 day. By the time we got to Old Faithful Inn, it was already 8PM at night, but the day was still bright. The Old Faithful Inn was a beautiful piece of architecture. We could really feel the history behind it. The upper level of the Inn was incredible with many different stairs and indoor balconies.
The very next day early morning, we visited Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. We could see the waterfalls running down the canyon. It was cool to see the waterfall instead of geysers. We then headed to Hayden Valley to check out the wildlife. There were many bison herds even just on the side of the road. After spending some time checking out the bisons, we went to Mud Volcano. It was a special thermal feature with bubbling hot mud in the ground. We spent about 30 minutes here and drove to West Thumb Geyser Basin. This basin is right by Yellowstone Lake and it was cool to see some geysers beneath the lake water.
We got back to Old Faithful Inn around noon to get a brief rest. Then we went to check out the eruption of Old Faithful. It was our first time seeing a geyser erupt! Afterwards, we walked around Upper Geyser Basin to check out all the geysers in the area. Later in the afternoon, we checked out Grand Prismatic Spring. It was extremely crowded.
On the third day, we went to Lamar Valley in the morning hoping to see more wildlife. We were able to spot bisons, pronghorns, and even a wolf! We spent quite a lot of time there checking out the lone wolf. As we were really focused on the wolf, a bison showed up and scared us. After this, we then did a scenic drive to Beartooth Highway. It was beautiful! As we drove back, we also saw a small bear pup resting under the shadow of the tree with its mom. Unfortunately we only had a glance of it.
On the fourth day, we went to Mammoth Hot Spring in the morning. We saw so many elks! After that, we went to Norris Geyser Basin to check out the largest Steamboat Geyser. As we finish here, there were already so many cars. Later in the day, we went to Artist Paintpot and saw popping mud. At night, we came to the Old Faithful geyser again to see it erupt at night. It was really cool. The milky way was quite amazing as well.
On the fifth day, which was also the last day we spend here, we went to Black Sand Basin and Biscuit Basin. The Sapphire Pool was extremely clear. We also went to Fountain Paintpot which has similar thermal feature as Artist Paintpot.
The vacation time at Yellowstone National Park was great! We have never seen these many geysers before! It was unfortunate that we didn't really spot a bear fully, but seeing a wolf was still great! We would definitely want to visit this national park again in the future.
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