Back in June on my Contiki Northern Adventure we had a day and a half stop in Yellowstone. I've been to numerous National Parks, all very beautiful, but Yellowstone is MASSIVE and has a wide variety of beautiful scenery. On our trip we visited several different areas of the park; Mud Volcano, Yellowstone Falls, Mammoth Hot Springs, Norris Geyser Basin and on our last day we visited Old Faithful and West Thumb Geyser Basin.
In this post I'll just talk about the overall experience there. First, we were very lucky on our trip, we saw all of the infamous animals, which is not normal for a group traveling as quickly through the park as we did. Buffalo were everywhere. Actually, it was annoying the second day when we were stuck in traffic by all the people who apparently had not seen a Buffalo and were not used to seeing them everywhere. Yes, Buffalo were everywhere. As were deer and elk. But wolves, bears and bald eagles are not everywhere, yet we managed to see them all! A couple points of interest, Yellowstone is volcanic, as in, one day a volcano will erupt there. Luckily, this is highly tracked so they'll know well before it happens. Yellowstone is also considered our first National Park. But most importantly, it was chilly there for June. Hey, when you're sensitive to the cold that is an important detail.
But if you're planning a trip here you really need to plan. There are so many different types of things to do there, that you really need to plan what types of things you are interested in doing and find the best spots to do them. If you just show up there, you'll drive by pretty lakes and stuff, but you'll miss the most interesting sites, some of which don't sound like the most intersting from their names.Have you been? What are your favorite areas of the park?
