Yellowstone National Park

Day 1

Two long days of driving had brought us to Powell, Wyoming – exactly where we would have been had our trip not been delayed by almost a week. We started Thursday morning exactly as originally planned, heading west along US 14 to the eastern entrance of Yellowstone National Park.

I strongly recommend this approach to the park.  In 2016, on a family vacation, we visited Yellowstone, but entered the park from the south, stayed primarily on the west side for our two-day visit, and exited to the north into Montana.

The drive just to reach the eastern entrance was spectacular.  Every bend in the road seemed to have something new to see – another mountain, another stream, another lake. It was simply stunning.

We finally reached to park entrance around 9:00, with my senior pass saving us the $35 entrance fee!  For the next several miles, it was “more of the same” with fantastic views as the road stealthily climbed past 8,000 feet in elevation.

We stopped at an overlook of Yellowstone Lake, an overlook that was reached by driving up a steep, narrow side road with no guard rails!  Upon reaching the lake, we knew that we were approaching the southern loop road.  After a brief discussion, we decided to spend the day working our way counter-clockwise along this road, making frequent stops.

As we headed north, we passed a large herd of bison grazing right along the road. Several cars had stopped for the photo op, so we decided to move on.  Our plan was then slightly modified – we would start early tomorrow to hit some of the more crowded spots we see today.

We did stop at the Canyon overlook, getting several photos of Yellowstone Falls.  The lot was fairly full, with a lot of people encountered in the short walk to the overview, but it was not oppressively crowded.  We would see that later in the day.

From the Canyon, we headed west across the top of the southern loop, then turned south toward Old Faithful.  We pulled off the road alongside a stream and enjoyed lunch while scouring the hills across the stream for any signs of wildlife (there were none).

Arriving at Old Faithful, we were shocked to find it absolutely packed 😊. I needed a biobreak, and got my NPS Passport stamped, but we were both pretty beat and decided we would return early the next day to get the mandatory photos of Old Faithful.  We headed to Grant Village, where we had reservations for two nights.  After dinner at the nearby restaurant, we retired to the room and crashed!

Steve