2023 Cross Country Road Trip – Days 18-19

Day 18

Yellowstone National Park

Today, we finally get to explore America’s first national park—Yellowstone National Park!

Spanning 2.2 million acres, this park is primarily located in the northwest corner of Wyoming but extends a little into Montana and Idaho. It was established in 1872 and is known for its wildlife and many geothermal features. It turns out that this is another park related to volcanos, the source of heat that vents out in the many colorful hot springs, mud pots, and geysers around the park.

We get there bright and early to try to get ahead of the expected crowds. This is a very popular park; long lines at entrances and key sites are very common. It was a beautiful day, but since it was so early, there was still a blanket of mist over the river along the main road through the park. It created a very beautiful yet mystical atmosphere.

The entire park is amazing! In fact, no words can fully describe its magnitude and beauty. This will be more of a photo dump, even though the pictures can’t do it justice. I took so many!

We go first to the Grand Prismatic Spring. You’ve probably seen pictures of this hot spring before, with its bright blue water surrounded by a multi-colored border. Here’s a postcard of the commonly known view of it. Beautiful, right? This is something I’ve wanted to see for a while.

However, we outsmarted ourselves. Since it was so early, yes, we easily got a parking spot in the lot, but the whole area was still covered in mist. Oops! The paved boardwalk through the hot springs area was also frosted over. It was so slippery! It was still amazing being there, but because of the mist, we didn’t get the brightly colored view it’s known for. We decided to come back later to get a better view. It was still amazing to walk through there, though!

So, next, we go to the most notable site that Yellowstone may be known for – Old Faithful Geyser! Just as we pulled into the parking lot for it, we could see that it was just starting to shoot water up! Great timing! We rush over to the surrounding boardwalk and watch the rest of it. Amazing!!

The boardwalk around it connects to the Visitor’s Center, so we check that out next to learn more about the park while we wait for the next time the geyser goes off. It goes off at a regular interval, if I recall, about every half hour or so, hence the name Old Faithful. The Visitor’s Center was very well done and one of several around the park, each offering different exhibits. Check them all out if you can.

There are many other hot springs around the park, but Old Faithful may be the most famous. As we go through the park, we can see the steam coming out of the spring vents all over. They’ve created paved boardwalks around them, where there are big clusters of them, so visitors can get a better view. Some sites were mesmerizing and surreal.

On our first day, we covered the western and southern sections of Yellowstone National Park. A big loop road goes through the park, but it is huge. Allocate several days to see everything, especially if you want to do more in-depth hiking and other activities.

Grand Teton National Park

So, for now, we continue driving down the main road, which connects to Grand Teton National Park! These two parks are basically next to each other. If you plan a trip to this area, be sure to visit both of them.

All of the national parks are beautiful in their own way. I’m not sure I can truly pick a favorite, but Grand Teton National Park is way up there on the stunningly beautiful scale! These mountains are so majestic and stunning!

View the details of our Grand Tetons visit here.

Back to Yellowstone

After we finish visiting the Tetons, we head back north to Yellowstone. At this point, it was almost sunset. We returned to Grand Prismatic Spring to see if we could get a better view than this morning.

It was definitely more crowded now. We had to loop around the parking lot for about half an hour before catching a spot as someone left. But it was worth it. We can see the springs more clearly now. The mist is finally gone, though there is still a lot of steam over the springs since the air is still colder than the water. We heard that it’s less steamy if you go in the summer when the air is warmer. We were there in the Fall. They are still very mystical. You can hike to another viewpoint that gives you a higher view down onto the springs, which would match the postcard view more closely, though. However, I’m glad we came back and got a better view and even got a gorgeous sunset in the background.

To cap off the day, we decided to return to Old Faithful one more time and visit the Old Faithful Inn next to it. This historic inn is inside the park and is one of the most iconic national park lodges. It is beautiful!

We caught Old Faithful again just as dusk set in and the moon rose over the inn. What a beautiful sight to end an incredible day!

Day 19

The next day, we left our hotel, a Best Western just outside the western entrance of Yellowstone, bright and early again, and decided to explore the northern and eastern sides of the park. It was another beautiful, mystical morning.

We start at the northern entrance. This is the iconic Roosevelt Arch, named after President Theodore Roosevelt, who was a huge proponent of conservation and national parks. The top of the arch is inscribed with a quote from the Organic Act of 1872, the legislation that created Yellowstone, which reads: “For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People.” It is pretty majestic!

Next, we stop at the Mammoth Springs area in the north, which has some elaborate stone white formations created by the hot springs.

As we started driving east, we encountered our first Buffalo traffic jam! We’ve been seeing random buffalo and elk around the park in our previous locations, but this was our first encounter with a whole pack of them! There were so many of them right along the hill on the side of the road! They were slowly walking down and crossing the road between the cars to drink at the river on the other side. We watched several of them walk right next to our car and cross the road in front of our car! They were huge! They just went over to the river, drank, and went back across the road and up the hill! Pretty funny and amazing and scary all at the same time!

We finished driving the loop around the park’s eastern side, stopping at a few other viewpoints before heading out to the eastern entrance. We saw a mama bear with two cubs, the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, and a few more hot springs.

We had an amazing time seeing all the major sites within Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Parks over these two days, but we could easily spend several more days here. There are so many opportunities for outdoor activities throughout the parks. Both are awe-inspiring and are some of our top favorite parks now. I took over 500 pictures and had a heck of a time narrowing them down to the ones I’ve posted here. There was another beautiful sight at every turn! Make sure to put these parks on your must-do list!

Time to leave the park and continue heading east. The rest of the day will be spent driving across the rest of Wyoming. It’s a very wide state! Beautiful drive though!