On our trip to Island Park we were excited to make our way to Yellowstone National Park and explore! We took the whole day to do the Grand Loop of the park from the West Entrance clockwise all the way around. We stopped at lots of amazing places along the way.
Our first stop was Gibbons Falls. We were driving by and saw a beautiful waterfall that was just a short overlook away and so we piled out and went to see it. We love waterfalls and this one was very pretty!
Our next stop was Artist's Paint Pots where there are numerous hot pots of different colors and textures. We really like the "hot flinging mud" hot pot that reminded us of boiling Elmer's Glue flinging around the area!
After a very brief stop at the 1988 fire overlook (wow..things have grown back since I was there in 1998) we headed around further to Artist Point. This was such a beautiful area of the park and hard to believe it was real. It reminded me of the feeling I've had at the Grand Canyon when your eyes just can't seem to take in what you are seeing. It was so picturesque with the huge waterfall and the enormous canyon and river at the bottem. I loved this area and could see why it was named Artist's Point.
While continuing around the loop we came upon a traffic jam and realized that one of the resident buffalo was out for a stroll. He was walking straight down the road as a snail's pace! All the cars gave him plenty of room and time and just waited until he finally decided to veer to the left and off the road a bit so we could pass. He didn't seem to be bothered by all the commotion and the kids thought it was cool to see the buffalo up close!
Our next stop was the Mud Volcano, which was more hot pots and mud pools. We enjoyed the little bit longer hike here as a chance to stretch out legs. We ended up going backwards on the trail and doing the bigger hill...but we are tough! Denali was a soldier and managed to make her way down from the top with a sudden bloody nose experience! Thanks to some Chinese tourists we got some tissues and were able to get things under control near the bottom! We decided maybe she's allergic to the horrible sulfur smells that were really strong at this Mud Volcano area. Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures in this area since the phone was dying and we wanted to be able to take some pictures at our next stop...Old Faithful!
The drive around from Mud Volcano to Old Faithful was a bit longer than the other drives and everyone fell asleep so I missed stopping at the West Thumb Geyser Basin (maybe next time?) and pushed on to Old Faithful. Unfortunately as we rounded the hill overlooking Old Faithful I could see it was erupting, so I knew that we were going to be in for a long wait before it erupted again. Oh well, the area is beautiful and we were able to explore the surrounding hot pots and visit the Visitors Center and get some Huckleberry Ice cream while we waited...and waited...and waited...until...the rain came! It got really windy and started to sprinkle, but we waited it out bravely and were rewarded by seeing Old Faithful erupt right on schedule!
After our rainy and cold experience at Old Faithful (and 8 hours into our day) I couldn't get anyone interested in stopping at the Fountain Paint Pots (one of my favorite places, but I've already been there), so we drove on by and headed back to our home in Island Park. All in all, it was a beautiful day in one of the most amazing places! Yellowstone...we will be back!
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