The sites in Yellowstone

One of the first places we visited in the park was the mud volcanos on the west side of the park.


Both kids loved hiking through the mud volcano site. Little N listened well and stayed on the path, which made our lives a lot easier. Big N was pretty thrilled using my old digital camera to take his own photos.




Little N was not a fan of the sulfur smell that was prevalent at the geothermic sites in the park.




I harassed one of the other park visitors in order to get a rare photo of the entire family.




Later that day we stumbled across the Lower Falls at Yellowstone. This area appears to be responsible for the name of the park. It was spectacular to see.

Summer Trip to Yellowstone

This summer en route to the family reunion in North Dakota, we drove through Yellowstone National Park. We left on the morning of June 18th and arrived in the park on Father's Day (June 19th).


We camped in Bozeman, Montana the night before and entered at the West entrance on Father's day. The drive into the park was beautiful on its own.

From what I have heard about trips to Yellowstone, Father's day weekend must be an ideal time to arrive. The park was not at all crowded. We've heard stories of long traffic jams throughout the park. Apparently, everyone else was busy honoring their dad on Father's day because we hardly saw any other cars. Sorry, Dad.



However, we did see buffalo almost immediately upon entering the park.


The rivers were really high. This was actually the case for about every river we saw along the drive through Washington, Idaho and into Montana.


There was snow on the ground in the passes, which shouldn't surprise anyone. The passes were over 8600 feet.



When we stayed in the park, we camped at the Fishing Bridge campground. This was a great location requiring hard sided vehicles. We figured out why on our last day in the park when we saw a bear wandering through the campground as we were pulling. It did make me rethink having let the kids play in the snow in the woods near our spot.

The campground is over 7000 feet high, meaning it was very cold at night! We had some very cuddly kids every morning. The kids even played in the snow around the campsite using their sand buckets.

Off to the Park

We have taken a two week vacation! I cannot remember ever taking this much time off in my adult life, other than maternity leave.

We started off heading towards Yellowstone National Park. After a few days, we headed to Rocklake North Dakota. After the trip to North Dakota, we headed to South Dakota to visit My Rushmore. It has been a whirlwind trip. Overall this has been a very positive family vacation.

It did start out a little hard for Little N. We drove two days to go to Yellowstone Park. As we're driving through the park to reach our campground passing herds of Bison and beautiful rivers, we hear from the back, "Where is the slide and the swings at this park?"

Little N was heartbroken to find out that a National Park is a different designation of the word park. She started crying, but we were able to make her smile after that.


Swedish Fish made it better