Flashback: Yellowstone, Day One

Or...whatever day of our trip this was (15, I think).

Our first day at Yellowstone was fun, but a bit exhausting. We got a bit of a late start into the park; we figured "we're already here, so why rush?" This actually worked to our advantage, as Yellowstone is notorious for its early-morning traffic jams. We noticed the parking lot of our lodge clear out by the early morning, so we avoided the early-morning rush.

Anyway, here we are at the Park's famous arch at the North gate:














After sitting at a brief construction delay, we made our way to the Albright Visitor Center at Mammoth Hot Springs to get our initial overview of the park. Kiersten enjoyed the stuffed animal displays upstairs, but mostly, she enjoyed running around.

We next made a brief stop at Undine Falls on the road between Mammoth and Tower Junction. We also stopped at the petrified tree a little further down the road, mainly because Donald Duck tried (unsuccessfully) to cut down such a tree on his trip to Yellowstone, and we wanted to show Kiersten. (Unfortunately, it didn't look like much of a tree.)

















We then drove over to Tower Waterfall, which we understood to be the waterfall to see in Yellowstone. It was...ok, as far as waterfalls go, but we were too far away to really appreciate it. The trail which led to the base of the waterfall had washed out, so we didn't get to see it up close. Also, we may have been a bit spoiled, since the falls at Glacier N.P. were also wonderful, and we got much closer to them.












After the falls, it was around 1 p.m., and we were getting tired and wanted to get to our campsite. We continued through the Tower-Canyon-Fishing Bridge route, although we ran into a brief traffic jam when about half of the Yellowstone bison herd decided to cross the road. We didn't mind; they were very interesting to watch up close. A few did come very close to our car, as illustrated by this photo, taken from the driver's side.














We got to our campsite at Bridge Bay in the early afternoon. We were a little intimidated at first, since our initial glimpse of the site had open spaces with R.V.s everywhere. However, our reserved site was in Section G, which was set back further in the woods and had much more privacy. This later worked to our advantage: on our third night, there was a strong wind which didn't affect us because we were so sheltered by trees. Anyway, I set up the tent, and Christina cooked us a nice hot steak-and-potato dinner. Our air mattress also worked wonderfully; it inflated in minutes thanks to our auto-pump, and it was considerably softer than our camp pads from Glacier.

Overall, Day One in Yellowstone was pretty successful, although we were a bit wiped out from our previous travels.