Step Back in Time to Yellowstone National Park Trip

~Written by Megan and her mom

At the beginning of July, Kevin had one week off from teaching classes, and he wanted to spend it on a family vacation. We chose to visit Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons because it had been about 8 years since we were last there, and Ian and Erin have never gone. We left after church on a Sunday afternoon and drove for several long hours. When at last we arrived at the West Entrance, we then had to find our campground which meant we had to drive for another hour. By then it was dark and we could hardly see anything. The dozing children were awakened when a large male bison suddenly appeared on the road and Kevin had to slam hard on the brakes to avoid hitting it.

Our Campground

Since we were visiting a national park, we had to camp in an established campground (Kevin generally prefers to find his own campsites away from other people). We ended up with a nice spot in the Bridge Bay Campground by Yellowstone Lake. It was a bit of a challenge setting up the tent quietly in the dark (we arrived at the early hour of 11:00 pm), but no one complained to us the next morning.

The Geysers

West Thumb Geyser Basin

This was the first geyser basin that we visited. There were a lot of colorful hot springs that we saw. There were many signs telling you not to go off the trail, and so we had to restrain Ian from walking on the edges of the wooden walkways. We saw bison tracks in the soft ground close to the hot springs.

Old Faithful Geyser Basin

We had to visit the most famous geyser in the park. It may not be the tallest, but it was pretty cool to see. We arrived a while before it was scheduled to go off, so April took Megan to the little bookstore nearby. Kevin and the kids got front-row seats for the eruption. It was quite amazing! We stayed for a second eruption. This one was better than the first, and we were a bit disappointed that we had not bothered to go up front to see this one. After we ate lunch there, Dad bought us some ice cream.

Norris Geyser Basin

A different day, we went to another geyser basin. As you can see, it was a bit wet, so the kids wore their rain ponchos. Here there were a lot of small hot springs and a few little geysers that spurted out water. The smell of sulphur was not pleasant. There was one hot spring that we thought smelled like tuna. There was an area where there were many of the little geysers that looked like the Little Prince's planet in the book "The Little Prince."

Mud Pots

Something that we all enjoyed were the Mud Pots. They were made of clay that wasn't really hot, but had gases pushing up and making the bubbles. We thought that they were very amazing. We watched one big one for a long time.

Our Campground After Summer Storm

We only had rain while hiking around the Norris Geyser Basin, but when we returned to camp, we found that the Yellowstone Lake area had received a few inches of hail! Fortunately our tent wasn't flooded like some of the others. We had a couple small areas where the hail had piled up, and the children scooped it up with spoons and put it in a milk jug to keep our cooler cool. Only a few spots in our tent were wet, but we still slept all right. We had to eat our dinner standing up though, because our picnic table was soaked.



Stay tuned for the next installment. . .