Yellowstone and so much more

14 -18 September 2022

What another trip! Yess we went on another trip!! This time a road trip through 6 states, and 2 national parks. This 4 day road trip was one of my favorite, we saw so many different nature things and I got 3 new states on my list! This road trip is starting and ending in the Bay Area, California. We are driving through Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Utah. I hope you’re having fun reading it!

Twin Falls, Idaho

Let’s start this trip!! We drove from the Bay Area, California to Twin Falls, Idaho. The drive was 10 hours. We left on a Wednesday evening around 8pm, so we wouldn’t waste any day time for driving. I know it’s crazy, but it worked, we were with 4 in the car so we just switched drivers. We slept in the car while driving over night. It was so worth it, because I think I saw one of my most beautiful sunrises there! I was lucky and got some sleep in the car, while my friend was driving and I woke up with the most beautiful sky in frond of me.

When we arrived in Twin Falls around 10 am on Friday morning we stopped at Centennial Waterfront Park. We eat breakfast there, and I can tell you it is the perfect place to eat breakfast. It wasn’t on the planning to stop here, but after a long drive we wanted to have breakfast and a coffee somewhere else then the car. So I looked on Google maps for a park or something in that direction and we ended up in this park with a beautiful view.

Shoshone Falls

After breakfast we drove to a visitor center, because we need to get our souvenirs for a new state! After we got our souvenir stuff we drove to the Shoshone Falls. Oh and we discovered that Idaho is the potato state haha! We saw many potato themed souvenirs in the store and billboards with potato’s on it.

Okay back to the falls. The Shoshone Falls is a state park where you can park very easily and walk down to the platform where you can see the falls. Unfortunately there wasn’t much water so the fall wasn’t that big, but the few was still beautiful!

After the Shoshone Falls we drove to Yellowstone! Finallyyyy! We drove for another 4 hours to the national park. The drive was fine, Idaho is a very flat state and the grass was yellow from color. It was a kinda boring drive, but we made it fun by having sing-a-longs in the car.

Yellowstone National Park

Before I continue the story I will tell you something about Yellowstone National Park. It’s a big park, and the first national park in the US! The road in the park is shaped like a 8 what makes it easy to explore the whole park. You can split the park up in 4 corners or 3 sides to make it easier to talk about. Every corner has something unique and totally different. In the north west corner you can find the hot springs, in the south west you can find all the geysers and on the east side you can find a waterfall and a lot of beautiful nature with wildlife! We saw many bison, elk and if you’re lucky you can find bears and wolves as well, we unfortunately didn’t see any bears or wolves. We were looking for bears all the time! Every time we saw something what could maybe be a bear we shouted it out to each other and hoped it was a bear… but unfortunately it was just a rock, a bush or an other animal. Another tip I can give you is when you see people with big binoculars, you could ask them what they see. Most of them would love to tell and show you what they see through the binoculars. You could see things through a binoculars better than with the bare eye. Also someone told me that if you want to see more geysers erupt, follow the elderly who seem like to know a lot about the park. Those people will be in the park a lot and know exactly when a geyser is erupting or not. Follow them to see more geysers erupt. Every geyser has is own ‘timer’ not very geyser is as faithful as the Old Faithful. Some are erupting 2x a day, some every 4 hours and some every few days. But those geyser seekers know what they look like before they erupt or they have been studying them, so they might know when they will erupt.

Another thing that’s fun to know is, when you’re driving around the park and you’re stuck in a traffic jam, most likely it’s because there is an animal on the road! Drive safe and be aware of wildlife who can just walk into the streets.

Old Faithful

Okay back to the story. We made it to the park!! Around 4pm we entered the park from the west entrance, and drove down to the geysers. We were kinda unlucky with the weather, because it was very foggy and there was overcast. We drove down to the Old Faithful first, it is the most famous geyser in the whole park and the most reliable one. Every 90 min he will erupt.

When we arrive at Old Faithful we only needed to wait for 10 min before it erupted. It was super cool to see! But unfortunately we couldn’t see it that well, because of the fog and overcast.

Next to Old Faithful you can find a big visitor center and different stores where you can get souvenirs, food and groceries.

Midway Geyser Basin

After the Old Faithful we drove back up north, in the direction of our hostel in West Yellowstone. But before we went to our hostel we stopped at Midway Geyser Basin. Here you can find the famous colorful lake that is one of the things Yellowstone is known for. It’s a loop where you can see some other geysers as well as the Grand Prismatic Spring (the famous colorful lake). We walked around and got amazed by the color of the water inside the geyser and the lake. It was still very foggy when we got there and it was until the next morning. We could still see the colors of the lake a little bit and the geysers looked even more mysterious with the fog.

Grand Prismatic Spring

We decided to go back to Grand Prismatic Spring on our last day in the park, to see the spring from up top where you can see the colors better then from down. We walked the Fairy Falls Trailhead in order to get to the Grand Prismatic Spring Overlook. It is a very short walk, it took us 20 min to go to the overlook and 20 min back. We enjoyed the view a lot and took many pictures. Saturday, the day that we went to the overlook the weather was amazing! It was sunny and almost no clouds, so the colors and the view was amazing!

Fountain Paint Pots

Our next stop was the Fountain Point Pot Trail. We parked the car at the parking lot and walked the loop that led us to the Fountain Paint Pots and other geysers around. This view was beautiful. The geysers had amazing colors and the water was so clear and bright blue of color.

Gibbon Falls

After visiting the Fountian Paint Pots we drove to the Gibbon Falls a little bit more north. We hoped to watch the sunset from there, but the sun got blocked by the mountains. The falls were still very pretty and the view was beautiful. On the way to the … Falls we saw our first bison!! It was walking on the side of the road and you saw many cars stopping or slowing down to pass the bison or to take pictures of him. He was so close!! It was amazing!

Sunset

We decided to drive back down to the Madison Information Station to watch the sunset, or at least what the end of it. You have a beautiful view of the river with the National Park Mountain in the back. When we arrived the sky was already pink and blue and we saw many some elk at the river. Many people were standing at a distance of the elk to admire them and enjoy the view. The whole picture was just amazing to see!

After enjoying the sunset with the elk, we drove to our hostel in West Yellowstone. We were all exhausted from the over night drive. We really wanted to watch the sunrise at the park both mornings we had, but unfortunately the weather wasn’t good enough to see any sunrise at all.

Yellowstone day 2

We started our day around 8am and drove into the park. We decided to do the north west side first and then work clockwise down. Unfortunately it was still foggy and overcast, but that didn’t really matter much. We got some beautiful pictures, especially from the mountains with the clouds.

Mammoth Hot Springs

Our next stop is the Mammoth Hot Springs! Before the trip I was doing some research about the park and I found out that you could actually swim in one of the hot springs! There are a few around the park, but in only one you’re allowed to swim in. The Hot Springs was a loop walk as well where you could see all the amazing formations and colors. It was breaking. I have never seen something like that in my life before.

When we walked around there it was cold, so we weren’t even planning on swimming in the hot springs, also we couldn’t really find it so we couldn’t do it. Besides, we didn’t see anyone going into the hot springs. I’m sure it would have been packed if you actually could swim in there that day.

At the hots springs there is a little village where you can stay in a lodge, there is a visitor center and some stores where you can buy souvenirs, snacks or groceries. Just like the one at Old Faithful. We found a group of elk here as well! They were just chilling on the grass. So yes you can really find wildlife everywhere!

North east side

After a wrong turn and seeing the whole east side of the park again we finally arrived at the North East side. Where we went to another waterfall, Tower fall, what is a beautiful very tall waterfall what you can see from a viewpoint. Next to the waterfall there was a store here you can buy more souvenirs, groceries or like us some warm cocoa or coffee.

We didn’t spend that much time at the falls, because we had more pretty views to see. Our next stop was Lamar Valley, but unfortunately because of a flood the road was closed half way. But we could still drive a part of the road there. The rangers told us that, that side had a lot of wildlife, so we wanted to check it out anyway. And the rangers did not lie, because we saw more bison and some other animal that looked like small deer, but it wasn’t. I don’t know what those animals were called. Ones again we were hoping to see a bear as well, but we didn’t.

Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

I think this stop was really one of my favorite. The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone was breathtaking! There were 2 giant waterfalls and whole Canyon Valley with amazing colors, a river in it and just the whole view was amazing. You can drive to different view points where you can see different views all the time. There was a little hike down to the view point of the waterfall. I haven’t seen such a beautiful waterfall as that one before.

The viewpoint where you can see the whole valley was amazing! Also the Artist point, was sooo pretty. The colors of the rocks were crazy, so many colors.

Hayden Valley

Our last stop for sunset was Hayden Valley, we actually arrived here by accident. We saw a pretty view, and the sun was already starting to set a little bit. We decided to stop at Hayden Valley to take pictures, enjoy the colors on the Valley and enjoy the view for a bit before driving more.

After a while we left Hayden Valley and drove more south. It was already getting dark so we didn’t stop at any other point. We decided to drive back to our hostel and call it a night.

Yellowstone & Grand Teton National Park day 3

Good morning, we packed all our stuff, did the last few view point we wanted to see in Yellowstone and drove all the way south out of the park into Grand Teton National Park. Also that day the weather was good! We had clear skies with sun! It was amazing to see the park in a different glow with the sun. The sun makes places just a little bit better.

Grand Teton is more like a pretty view park. There are many lakes around the 3 mountains, Grand Teton, what gives a beautiful scene. The park has many backpacking trails, so no smaller hikes.

We stopped 3 times. First at a view point from a lake, along the road, but the lake was kinda dry so the view wasn’t as beautiful as we thought. Our second stop was at Jackson Lake Overlook. There was a rocky beach where you even have access to the lake. The whole scene was just breathtaking.

Our last stop in Grand Teton was Jenny Lake. By then it was super cloudy so we couldn’t see much. Even tho that there was a lot of fog and overcast, it gave an amazing mysterious glow over the mountains.

Jackson, Wyoming

It isn’t a real road-trip (for us) if we didn’t stop at a bar. So we stopped in Jackson to go to a cowboy bar! This bar was so cool! The whole style was western and cowboy. They had line dancing, a bar with horse saddles, pool tables and many people with cowboy hats. We spend some time here, got some drinks and played pool. We were so extremely tired that it was a special situation, but we made it fun!

After the bar we needed to drive for another 3 hours to our hostel we stayed at just along the road to Salt Lake City.

Salt Lake City

The next morning we drove through Salt Lake City, we didn’t plan on stopping here at all until one of my friends reminded us that the High School Musical school in Salt Lake City is. They really wanted to stop, so we decided to take a little brake and dive to the school. We took some pictures, we called some friends from home who were big fans of HSM, and moved on with our 13 hour drive back home.

Bonneville Salt Flats

Another stop! This one was on the planning. Bonneville Salt Flats! This place has been on my list for a long time. I have seen so many amazing pictures from people who went there, that I really wanted to see it myself. The Salt Flats is a cool view. We walked around on top of the salt, what was kinda melted so most of it was water. My friend and I even tried the salt haha. I can tell you, it’s very salty.

We didn’t spend that much time here, because we wanted to be home at a reasonable time. After the Salt Flats we didn’t stop at any special spots anymore. But…. We got stuck in traffic for 2 hours near Lake Tahoe… We literally stood still for 2 hours. We had no idea why, but we even walked around the road for a bit. Just because. After 2 hours we were on the road again and made it home safely.

This blog was long, but we did a lot so its not weird. I hope you enjoyed reading it and it taught you more about Yellowstone and that a crazy roadtrip like this is possible.

Thanks for reading :)

All the places in one list:

• Centennial Waterfront Park

• Shoshone Falls
  

Yellowstone National Park

• Old faithful

• Midway Geyser Basin

• Grand Prismatic Spring

• Fairy Falls Trailhead (Grand Prismatic Spring viewpoint)

• Fountain paint pots

• Gibbon Falls

• Madison Information Station

• Mammoth Hot springs

• Tower Fall

• NE entrance road

• Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

• Upper falls and lower falls

• Artist Point

• Hayden Valley

Grand Teton National Park

• Jackson Lake Overlook

• Jenny Lake

• Jackson, WY

• Salt Lake City, UT

• Bonneville Salt Flats