I should note that beforehand we purchased a Annual Pass to all the National Parks/Monuments/Forests/Rec Areas etc for $80. This got us into all the places we visited for FREE! This saved us some cash as it was anywhere from $5-$25 to enter the parks.
We found and awesome free camping site just south of the south entrance of the park. See pic 1.
The first day, of course, we visited Old Faithful. It is the best known feature at YS. As we were waiting for the geyser to go off a bison leisurely strolled passed us. AWESOME! Our first wildlife sighting!
We took a short walk around to some of the other close geysers and hot springs to kill some time. Finally, we made it back to Old Faithful just in time to see it erupt. Gallons of water heated by earth's thermal activity came hurdling out of the ground, that was a super cool experience.
I didn't realize there were soooooo many geysers and hot springs in the park until we started hiking around the area. We spent an entire day and 8 miles of hiking seeing all the major thermal sites at the park and we still didn't get to all of them. Each of them however looked different or behaved in a different way. One of the geysers would begin erupting and sometimes would continue to erupt for 10-24 hours, whoa!
This next picture is one of the prettiest hot springs at the park. The different water temperatures allow for different bacteria and algaes to live and grow. The coolest (but still scalding hot) water is where the orange is while the clearest/bluest water in the center doesn't allow for anything to grow.
Everywhere you looked you could see steam coming up from the ground!
We also we able to see a fabulous sunset at the lake one evening.
The following picture is of yet another site where the thermal activity in the earth has created beauty. These are calcite travertines. The water runs over the hill and slowly deposits calcium which creates these snow white formations. I saw a similar yet larger travertine in Pamukkale, Turkey back in November of 2011. You could walk through the travertines in Turkey. The water here was WAY too hot and of course it's America where you cant touch or climb on anything.
Dad and I at the travertines.
Yellowstone park has many many waterfalls but the two largest ones are almost back to back on one river. The most amazing part was that you could hike right up to the edge and look over. It was an eerie feeling, one, because of the amazing power and beauty and two, because I have a little issue with heights.
I'm not photoshopped into this one I promise I was actually there.
The bison have no manners. They just stand in the middle of the road and walk SLOWLY right now the middle...probably laughing internal bison laughs at all the tourists.
Yellowstone has so much to offer and to see and to do. We only spent 2.5 days and we saw a lot but we didn't see nearly all of it.
If there is one place I suggest you see in the USA, it Yellowstone National Park.
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