Day One: Yellowstone National Park

Many of you have asked about our trip and how we broke down each day to see all of the park. Let me start by saying that Yellowstone is HUGE. I highly suggest going in with a plan because it will take you a couple of hours to get from one side of the park to the other. The speed limit is mainly 45mph and there's a lot of traffic during this time because it's peak season. And, you'll find yourself in multiple bison jams depending on where you are in the park. But, hey- take it slow and enjoy the views!

So let's get started!

Day One:

We drove up from Big Bend through New Mexico, Denver, and ended up in Cody. If you come from Cody, you will be enter the park through the east entrance. The drive from Cody to Yellowstone was gorgeous and not very busy coming in from this way.

In our first 30 minutes of driving through the park, we came across a small crowd of people watching a cub in the woods. And farther down the road, more people were watching two more on Grizzly Mountain. (According to the map) They were calling one of the cubs JAM which I read about in a book about Yellowstone later that week. It was the perfect start to our trip.

After bear-watching, we headed down to Sedge Bay where we pulled off, grabbed our chairs, and cooked breakfast on our camp stove. There's something magical about a slow breakfast outside in beautiful weather. I loved the views of Sedge Bay. The water was cool, the fog was rising as the time went by, and it wasn't packed with people.

After breakfast, we headed to West Thumb to see the geysers. We learned quickly that the crowds start forming around 11:00 so it's better to get anywhere popular early or later in the evening. We parked and headed to the boardwalk where we saw the start of many, many geysers. It's hard to believe that these thermal pools, geysers, and hot springs exist all over the park. The colors of these pools were crazy amazing.

After West Thumb, we made our way to Old Faithful Inn to check in with our family and check the status of the deliveries we had en route to our restaurant for the new kitchen. Just a side note, there was very little service near Old Faithful Inn and no guest Wi-Fi unless you were staying there. (We also could not get the Wi-Fi to work when we stayed there either)

The Old Faithful Inn is absolutely beautiful which made us excited for our one night stay in the cabins on that Wednesday. We ended up staying long enough to see Old Faithful erupt which was on the top of our tdo list for the park. It's definitely cool and a sight for everyone. It erupts every 90 minutes give or take so you can see this happen multiple times throughout the day. And, all spots are great spots to see it. Fair warning, it gets really crowded so I would suggest going early in the day or later in the evening.

After we checked on our deliveries, we headed to the Madison campground to check in and set up camp for the night. I loved being at the campground during the afternoon because it was so quiet as everyone was out exploring the park. The campground was awesome. I highly suggest booking a night or two here. It's clean with many care stations so you always have a bathroom/sink nearby. There's also a trail that leads you from the campground down to the river. It was one of our favorite spots that we found on our own. I believe this is where Gibbon and Firehole meet and they form the Madison River.

After setting up camp, we went back to see if The Grand Prismatic parking was any better but it was still packed around 5:00. So, we ended our evening exploring the Black Sand Geyser Basin. There were so many bright colors and interesting sights that I highly suggest going to this one.

We soon headed back to camp to cook dinner and settle in for a chilly, rainy night. Stay tuned as day two was even better!