Day 8 - Yellowstone Part One

I can’t believe how far we got already! In just one week we made it all the way to Yellowstone.. It was definitely one of the top places on our itinerary that I was looking forward to!

We left bighorn on the early side and made it to Yellowstone by lunch time. We had a fancy lunch of tuna fish and pretzels while sitting on the edge of Yellowstone Lake. I dipped my feet in the water and couldn't believe how crystal clear it was.

On our drive through the park I was amazed to see all of the burnt pine trees and the baby ones growing right next to them.

After lunch we went to geyser basin and saw some really incredible views. I was so impressed how much the geysers varied in size and color. They came from turquoise, to red, yellow and white… I was truly in awe. I later realized these geysers were about 200 degrees Fahrenheit and they all smelled like rotten eggs.

We tried searching for some camping but unfortunately all sites were booked. We instead decided to make a trip to Old Faithful where we waited almost an hour to see the incredible cone geyser that erupts once 45 min to 2 hours. When we arrived it was steaming but man when it erupted it got so high.. between 100 and 185 feet. It is the most famous geyser in Yellowstone and was the first to receive a name.

Since that wasn’t enough we decided to make one more stop in Yellowstone to Grand Prismatic Spring which is the largest hot springs in all of the US. It was just during sunset so the lighting was quite magnificent. It was really hard to believe that all of what we saw today was naturally occurring.. nature can really be a crazy thing.

It was after dark already and food was on the bottom of our list so we stopped for a quick bite in a cowboy style restaurant/ ice cream shop then drove another few hours to Bozeman, where we are staying with a friend. It was late by the time we got there so we went straight to sleep.