Yellowstone National Park

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273 miles

Yellowstone National Park is only 30 miles north of the Tetons but covers 3400 square miles of wilderness.  It was eerie to be driving straight into the caldera of an active volcano, knowing that there is so much thermal activity going on.  There are acres of land bubbling and spewing steam and water, pools of grey mud gurgling, areas that smell like sulfur, and road closures because of “environmental emergency.”  

Putting all that fear behind us, we headed straight for the geysers!  We arrived at the upper geyser basin visitor center just in time to see Old Faithful erupt.  They have its eruption timed to the minute, give or take 10 minutes.  It erupts every hour and a half or so.  Waiting for Old Faithful to erupt is like watching the lottery on tv to see if you’ve won.  Old Faithful was a few minutes late at our showing, so it was that much more suspenseful and exciting.   

Afterward, we walked along the boardwalk that stretched for miles around the other geysers and boiling pools.  I must have taken 300 pictures…

I heart bacteria

bubbling mud!

After the geysers, we went north and caught our first Bison sighting!  We also saw some coyotes walking through the meadow.  While driving through a heavily forested area of the park, we also saw a grizzly bear heading back into the woods (grizzly butt!), but by the time we turned the car around to take a picture, he was gone.  We made our way around the lower loop of Yellowstone and down through the canyon area as the sun was setting.  

On our way out of the park, we passed by some photographers set up by the side of the road.  Their giant expensive cameras were pointed towards a clearing in the forest.  They said that a bison had been sick and was taken down by some wolves earlier in the day.  What was left of the bison carcass was being eaten by scavengers until a few minutes prior when a grizzly bear dragged the rest of the body up into the woods- we had just missed all the action!

The last wild animal on our checklist to see this trip?  The goofy, yet elusive MOOSE! Keep reading to see if we spotted one in our travels.