Yellowstone: Grand Canyon & Virginia Cascades

    And now the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone! Thursday morning we drove 26 miles northeast to Canyon Village where we parked and walked around the Upper Falls area. Talk about feeling small. All you had to do was look down! Everything in Yellowstone is on a MUCH larger scale than what I'm used to seeing in Georgia. Every place you turn you can see the history. Being surrounded by something that has been around for so long kind of puts you in your place. Here's a photo from the Upper Falls of the Grand Canyon:

Upper Falls, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone

   Then we took a short hike on the North Rim Trail and arrived at this lookout point of the Grand Canyon:

North Rim Trail, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone

Me and my honey! (representing our home teams)

    After a few hours seeing the Grand Canyon, we made a couple stops on the way back to our campsite. The first was the Virginia Cascades. There's a few different pullouts along the Cascades and it was a really peaceful place to read and take photos.

Virginia Cascades

Virginia Cascades

Virginia Cascades

    After Virginia Cascades, we stopped at Gibbon Falls. Leaning over the rail to get a good shot was definitely not the most comfortable feeling in the world...it's a LONG way down! But I sucked it up. About 50 photos later, we got back into the car and headed to Madison campground where we celebrated our last night in Yellowstone with a warm fire and some nice whiskey :)

Gibbon Falls

    The next morning we would pack up camp and say our goodbyes. Our route home took us through the Grand Tetons (BEAUTIFUL!). I'll be posting one last blog with photos of the trip home. Thanks for reading!

Yellowstone or Bust: Old Faithful Geyser

     So, Yellowstone! Finally! On our last day of driving, we woke up early, drove through Bighorn (previous blog) and made it into Yellowstone at last.

   The entrance fee was only $25 for a little over a week. Not a bad deal. Once we were inside the park it was even harder not to drive off the road because the scenery takes your breath away. I, unfortunately, didn't take many photos leading into the park because we were just ready to get to the campsite.

     We came in through the eastern entrance and drove around Yellowstone Lake (huge!) up to Canyon Village to Norris then to our campground, Madison. All in all, it was about 69 miles from the east entrance to our campground. Driving at 45 miles per hour, and that's only when you're not having to stop behind a line of cars that saw a buffalo and forgot what a pullout was for, it took a solid 1 1/2 hours to get to the campground. At that point we were definitely ready for some R&R topped with an ice cold beer.


    Joining us for that ice cold beer was George, our very own Yellowstone prairie dog. Later his friends, John, Ringo and Paul would join the party.

    These guys were social butterflies especially when the food came out. There were tiny holes in the ground all over the campsite that they ran through and, if you sat really still, they would walk right up to your feet. I wasn't expecting them to be quite so friendly. One of them came up right by my feet and when I lifted my legs up he acted like he was about to jump onto my leg! Cute, but a little too close for comfort. Every now and then, we would catch one that was brave enough to jump onto our picnic table and make it to our lunch. We definitely received a warm welcome to Yellowstone :)




     The second day in Yellowstone, we set out for the Old Faithful Geyser Basin about 16 miles south of our campground. Can I say, "WOW," again? We walked from Old Faithful Geyser and made about a 5 mile loop around the geyser basin. The colors were just amazing, the smell not so much.

Here's a map of the trail we took. Starting at the bottom right with Old Faithful and then veering towards the right and walking #6 to #17 Morning Glory Pool then back down to #4 that led to beginning of trail. I got sprayed a couple of times, but I guess you can't really say you've been to Yellowstone without getting sprayed by a geyser. The walk itself was beautiful and very sunny. We looked like tomatoes over the next couple of days. If you're planning on walking this trail just make sure you bring more water then you think you'll need because you will need it. It's not a difficult trek but you will be guzzling H2O.



I'll stop talking now and show some photos :)

Chinese Spring

Blue Star Spring

Pump Geyser

Grotto Geyser

Morning Glory

Old Faithful Geyser

Grotto Geyser