Our Advernture Part III: Yellowstone

Grab a snack and get comfortable, because this is a long one.

So, the first night we stayed right outside the park. Yellowstone has a few reservation campgrounds, but we planned to go there too late. There are a ton of first come first serve campgrounds, so we wanted to get there as early as possible to reserve a spot. A lot of people were really concerned that we didn't have anything booked. I am not sure why. Maybe it was just because I had been there before so I knew that we would be able to find a campsite so I wasn't worried. However, so many "Oh you don't have a reservation…" comments made me a little bit nervous. A little side note about me is that I make a to-do list everyday and research EVERY.little.THING. So, know that I would never go into anything blindly.

We got up early ate some oatmeal for breakfast and checked out. Then we drove the 5 minutes to the park entrance. Yellowstone is enormous, so getting to the entrance has very little meaning. We drove for about a half hour before we passed the first campground. It was full so we kept driving. Next we found Norris Campground. It was pretty full, but we found a site near the bathroom (key with small children). We set up camp, ate some lunch, and then went out to explore. We decided to explore the upper/north circle. My husband had never been to Yellowstone or Wyoming. He was in total awe. He is very much an outdoorsmen, so heaven? We saw lots of wildlife as you do in Yellowstone. Jack napped for a lot of it. It was a nice day of exploring. It was really cool to see Yellowstone again, now as an adult. I feel like I appreciated it much more. We saw bison, elk, bears, and other smaller animals. In the evening the we went back to our campsite, ate some dinner, and got Jack to sleep. Then Jacob, Mia, and I made s'mores and read books before heading to bed.








The next day we drove the lower circle. We hit up fishing bridge. Ate some lunch at a picnic area and headed to Old Faithful.  On our way we got stuck in a buffalo traffic stop.
Jacob and Jack were ecstatic.



 Mia was pretty thrilled herself.



As soon as they passed we kept driving. We didn't know what time Old Faithful was supposed to be erupting, so we just went out and found some seats. We had to wait a while, which would have been fine without a 1 year old in tow. Jack was not in the mood to sit and wait, so he made friends with the people around us. Apple falls VERY far from the introverted tree. I heard someone say we still had twenty minutes. Awesome. Then it kept teasing us. It would bubble up, steam, and then stop. The whole crowd would get excited and then-nothing. A guy nearby said "This will probably be the first time Old Faithful is unfaithful." I really started to wonder. Then, finally:



Blast off.

After we finally saw it happen we headed over to the touristy shops. I dropped some post cards in the mail and we got some ice cream. It was a mountain berry ice cream they made on site. I am not sure if it was just because we had been camping or if it really was amazing. Seriously the best ice cream of my life and I am a chocolate girl through and through.

After our treat we drove the rest of the circle back to our campground. As we were driving I saw a beautiful white dog sized animal walking a long a river. I yelled out "Ooh a fox!" I immediately knew I was wrong, but wasn't certain I had seen a wolf. Jacob asked me if it was  a red or grey fox. I said grey because it was white.  When we got back to our campsite I was looking at pictures of wildlife you might see in Yellowstone and realized it was definitely a wolf. I shared this information with Jacob and he was.not.happy. He was like "How do you not know the difference?" and "You realize that is like a once in a lifetime experience right?" and "I would have stopped if you said 'wolf' not 'fox'." My bad. My husband is an outdoorsmen and I very much am not. I spend a lot of time not learning about animals.

Anyway, normal evening activities only tonight there were 2 bison wandering through our campground. Kind of far from us, but still in our campground. They finally made their way elsewhere and we went to sleep.

The third and last day we set out to explore. We decided to focus on one stretch and get out and see more. We saw the paint pots and a bunch of hot springs. We stopped to see some waterfalls and lots more animals (no more wolves…).





We got back to camp and started packing up to be able to get an early start the next day. Then a buffalo walked right through the campsite next to ours. I collected my babies and locked them in the car with me while Jacob took pictures. Bison are calm animals, until they get scared. I wasn't taking any chances.


We left nice and early the next morning. Before we had even finished packing out car up a family came and reserved out campsite. On the road we went. Off to Mount Rushmore.

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