Yellowstone

This is the 3rd of a series of semi-regular articles chronicling the 2017 road trip my youngest and I took to Wisconsin and back again.  This is something that, after you read this, think to yourself, "don't do Yellowstone in just one day."

The first time I visited Yellowstone National Park, I think I was 12 or 13 and we spent at least a week there.  The second time, I was newly married and my wife and I spent 3 days.  This time around, my youngest and I spent just a day in the park, driving in from Idaho, then driving back out later that evening at dusk.  There is no way, that's nearly enough time for anything, but we packed as much as we could into the day, hiking, sightseeing and geocaching.

We came in through the West Yellowstone entrance and then headed toward the geyser basins.  The first major stop was at the Grand Prismatic Spring seen in the first shot.  This alone is worth a partial day visit.  I wish there was a way I could convey the colors, the smells and everything about this, but I just can't.  This photo is close, but I don't think it does it justice.  And we didn't even get around to the other side.  There's a trail on the hillside that gets you at elevation above the spring so you can see how truly grand it is and how large it is.  That, in and of itself, gives me another reason to go back and spend more time there. It's the largest hot spring in the United States and third largest in the world.  It measures 370 feet in diameter and is 160 feet deep.

After the spring, it was on to the Old Faithful area.  All I can say is check the geyser schedule somewhere ahead of time. We got there at noon, about 10 minutes before eruption and it took us 15 minutes to find a parking spot.  Because we were day tripping in the park, we didn't really have a choice as to when we were going to be there.  Needless to say, we didn't see it erupt that time, but watched it erupt twice more that afternoon, once by the seating areas and once from a trail.  The second time, it was erupting while Beehive geyser was also erupting.  That's pretty spectacular to see two different geysers fairly close to each other erupting at the same time.

The rest of the afternoon, we spent hiking here and there among the geysers, taking in the sights, doing virtual and earth caches.  Earth caches and virtual caches are geocaches that don't have a physical container.  Virtual caches usually take you to a specific place of scenic or cultural beauty and you have to answer a specific question about the spot, or post a photo of you at the spot to prove that you were there.  Earth caches are similar, only the spot is geological in nature and you have to answer geology questions based upon what you see at the spot.  The National Park Service, with a couple of exceptions, doesn't allow physical geocaches in the parks because they view them as litter.  They do allow virtual and earth caches though, so we spent the day doing those.  With all of the stuff we were learning, our brains literally hurt by the end of the day.

While we were there, we watched Old Faithful erupt at around 2:30 or so.  Packed house.  We hiked around some more in the area, then went to nearby restaurant to eat dinner.  Came back out and watched Old Faithful erupt again and could have had our pick of seats in the seating area at that time.  Lesson learned.  If you have time, wait until after dinner to watch Old Faithful erupt.  Most of the crowds have dispersed back to their hotels or campsites and the parking lot has many spaces available.  I don't think it's ever not crowded there, but there were definitely less people later in the evening.  In the summertime, it doesn't really get dark until after nine o'clock, so you have lots of daylight hours in which to work.

After dinner, we drove over the continental divide and drove down to view Yellowstone Lake.  There was another geyser basin right along the lakeshore, so we walked the boardwalks there and enjoyed the peacefulness of the lake.  There were not as many people here, mainly because it was getting later on in the day and as noted above, most people had "gone home" for the day.  After sightseeing lakeside, we hopped back in the Jeep and made our way back through West Yellowstone and into Idaho where we were staying the night. A bison jam slowed us down, but that was pretty cool watching a herd of bison walk across the road in front of us.  At least we weren't going the other way on the road where a bison decided to lay down in the middle of the lane and take a siesta.

Moral of the story is, don't even think about just spending a day there.  I think you need a week, maybe longer to fully enjoy the park.  I know I'm going to be spending some more time there in the future.