Yellowstone Pt. 1
Yellowstone!!!!!
We’ve been thinking about you all year and we are finally here!
Coming in the off season was the main goal and it is working beautifully.
Look at how empty it is!
Anyone that’s been here during the regular season, I’m sure can attest, that there are never available parking spaces.
What normally takes 4 hours to get in the west entrance took us all of 30 seconds.
Now…it could be the time of year, but it also could be the looming shutdown.
Will it happen or won’t it?
This was our main talking point all day: Will we be able to enter the park and just not the buildings or will the entrances be closed off?
No one gave the same answer, so the only thing to do was wait until the next morning.
While we waited to see, we got after it.
If we only have one day, let’s see what we can see!
We saw the Painted Pots, geysers, and pools.
We saw bison galore!
We timed it perfectly (unintentionally) and walked up to Old Faithful several minutes before it erupted.
So cool!
Okay, actually, pretty anti-climactic but still grateful we got to see what everyone talks about and didn’t have to wait an hour for it.
We hit up the visitors center while we could and watched a video giving us an overview, before heading the Grand Prismatic and Excelsior Geysor.
Again, very unique and pretty to see, but kind of underwhelming…until we went to the Grand Prismatic overlook and wow!
From ground level, it just looks like a bacteria filled, shallow pool, with sulfuric smelling steam coming out of it, but from above…you can see the colors in all their glory and appreciate the size of the basin…
While deciding if we should do the overlook trail or not, I unknowingly said some prophetic words:
“I think the overlook will be a beautiful site and worth it, but should we come back in the morning? It’s getting close to dusk and I really don’t want to run into a bear on the trail. While it would be awesome and give us an epic story, I’d rather just see one from the safety of the car.”
Well, that’s exactly what happened.
The trail was pretty busy, so we let Avett run head before he came racing back.
“People saw a grizzly! A grizzly!”
We didn’t believe him at first (he likes to cry wolf a lot), but then we realized he wasn’t joking.
There, on the hillside to the right, was a young male grizzly.
Well hello worst fear.
It was clear the bear wasn’t interested in us and was a “safe” distance, but that’s still too close for comfort for me.
And yes, we had multiple cans of bear spray and possibly even a bear gun in the group we were walking with, but still.
Not with my babies in tow.
So when we got to a safer distance, the littles and I ran on ahead over the bridge to the parking lot and waited by the car.
Once at the car, I felt much better.
Embry, thrilled by the bear, just wanted to pet it. Fortunately, she finally listened to Justin and got in the car.
It’s incredible that after seeing some of the most unique geothermal sites in the entire world, it’s a grizzly bear that my kids will remember for the rest of their lives.
And that makes all the sense in the world to me.
Not that the bison weren’t fun to see, but a grizzly that close truly did put this day over the top for us.
We’ll see if the next few days can put this first one to shame…
