Yellowstone National Park
My sister and I awoke bright and early the next morning in Cody. Knowing that we would be ill-advised to wake up the rest of the family, we got out of the camper and took a walk. The campground was fairly large; we took a walk around the outer loop, and that had us walking for a while. We saw 4 bunnies on the way!
As soon as everyone was up and ready, we drove into the town. We stopped at a laundromat, and Jonathan and I sat there while the laundry was laundering (what am I doing) for about an hour. It was actually quite fun.
The laundry was done, the Wal-Mart trip complete, and we drove out of town. We went through a canyon, past a reservoir, and through a lot of mountains before finally arriving at the eastern entrance of Yellowstone National Park. This was one thing we had been looking forward to for a very long time, almost since we came up with the then wild idea of traversing the country. About five minutes of driving ensued, and then we saw the view that is pictured up there. ^^^ Wow - what majesty! And what an amazing thing to witness. It was made all the better by the fact that we were looking at it as a piece of art - a wonderful sculpture that God had created. How could you look at a thing like this and say that it was made by an accident? Every part of this park screams God's name. He shaped those mountains. He filled that lake. He put every part of Yellowstone together for a purpose. That was one of the main themes of our trip - seeing the world's beauty reflecting God's beauty.
Our campsite was on the other side of the lake, so we drove around it and set up. We wandered down to the lake very soon after, and played there for an hour or so. After that, we drove around the park through the gorgeous Hayden Valley. No, not pronounced like the composer! And there we saw what had many times piqued our curiosity.
Buffalo! Also called bison, these things are HUGE. SO. BIG. They're gigantic - and Yellowstone N.P. has the largest herd of free-ranging buffalo in the world. Bison don't care who's there or who's not - they just go where they want to go. We got to see one up close - really close, actually - he walked straight past our car and crossed the street, following another buffalo! You wouldn't want to cross that guy - he's a lot larger and stronger than any human. Yikes.
We thought we were lucky, but no - these gargantuan creatures are ALL over the place in Yellowstone. Everywhere. We kept driving through the valley, and kept seeing buffalo everywhere - they actually cause a lot of traffic jams in the park, crossing the road whenever they please, and doing whatever strikes their fancy. We crested one hill, and then -
Hundreds of buffalo all over. That was amazing.
After the buffalo, we saw a waterfall in the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone (that place is AMAZING, look it up), and that was super fun. The waterfall reminded me a lot of the state of Illinois...
Sorry for the blurry quality of some of these - it was hard to get good pictures as we were facing the sun!
On the way back, we ran into a traffic jam, and instead of waiting out the 2 hours that people said it would take, we turned around and took the Grand Loop of Yellowstone. While taking A LOT longer than we thought it would, it was very beautiful, and we got to see a bunch of geothermal activity.
AND it was Golden Hour, which makes it AMAZING. Of course.
But when we got back, it was dark, late, and freezing cold, so we went to bed.
~NEXT DAY~
We woke up bright and early, for it was time to see the staple of the park - can you guess? - Old Faithful.
We sat and waited for the geyser to go off for a while, and when it did, it was amazing. It went quite high, and it was very impressive. When we had seen that, we took a huge loop walk around the lower geyser basin. We saw all kinds of geysers, fumaroles, paint pots, and hot springs, and a lot of them were actually more impressive than Old Faithful. We went to the Old Faithful visitor's center, and got ice cream. But we were there so long that we got to see the geyser go off again! It was quite fun.
We were tired after our walk, and so we left after getting some things from the gift store and using the restroom. We were soon home, and cooled off a bit down at the lake. One cool thing about the lake was that it was a sand lake, which is quite unusual, and the sand itself was not normal sand - it was dark grey! We figured that the colour of the sand was due to the volcanic activity under the park.
After that, we finished the day with a drive through Hayden Valley again, but this time, we didn't see any buffalo. Instead, we saw the mud pots near where the buffalo had passed our car the day before.
Those are just a few.
After exploring the paint pots, we headed home, had a campfire, and went to bed.
~NEXT DAY~
It was Grand Teton day for the Runions! We headed out bright and early, and drove out of Yellowstone straight into Teton. We were in awe at the beauty of these giant mountains, and...well, I'll just show you.
The mountains were gorgeous, but we were tired, hot, and hungry, so we went back to the camper. We found the showers, which were $4.20, and scrubbed ourselves clean. We wrote words on the sand (at the lake again), had dinner, and went to bed.
And that, my friends, concludes my experience at Yellowstone National Park!!
What was your favorite day?
~Catharine
