We have discovered 2 things on this trip about National Parks. First, to see as much as possible, break the exploring into sections. And second, unless you absolutely have to, don’t try to be there early in the morning.

Yesterday, we arrived in Yellowstone a little before 3, but because there was little to no traffic, we could see everything we wanted in 5-6 hours. Today, we decided to do the same thing. We slept in until around 9am and then headed to a restaurant recommended by the front desk.

The only negative I have found about the Yellowstone Park Hotel is the breakfast. It has the regular beverage selection (coffee, milk, juice) but food-wise, it is just oatmeal packs, cereal and breakfast bars. We were in the mood for a big breakfast, probably because we skipped dinner last night 😊, so off we went. The great thing about West Yellowstone is everything is within walking distant. And as we walked, we watched the bumper to bumper traffic trying to get into Yellowstone.

Meanwhile, the late-rising Brown’s are loving Timberline Cafe!

But first, Mike’s shirt 🤣😂

The boys were clearly starving since they ordered waffles with blueberries and whipped cream, and steak and eggs

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As we walked back to the hotel to load up for the day, we noticed these green paw prints along the road

These are for the walking tour of West Yellowstone. And look what we found! A plaque! West Yellowstone was a major hub of the Union Pacific Railroad. These are the generator hub and train depot.

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The boys packed their own backpacks and filled their water bottles, and we let them (staying together), go down to the game room while we packed the lunches and cooler. Mama’s restaurant was making awesome sandwiches today on Hawaiian Rolls

I think they were pretty happy to have a couple of minutes to themselves 😊

Today our plan was to head toward the Mammoth Hot Springs area and the North Entrance. We’ve already toured the East Entrance (when we came in from Cody), the South Entrance (when we went to and returned from the Grand Tetons) and we are staying near and coming through the West Entrance (get it, West Yellowstone). The views are a little different headed north, and a few twisty roads… of course after the Going to the Sun Road nothing really seems narrow to Mike anymore 😀

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We made it to the Mammoth Hot Springs Visitor’s Center which was the former Fort Yellowstone… an actual army outpost in the early 1900’s. The Park Service took the area over and kept the buildings and outposts as residences for the rangers stationed here, and other services (Visitors Center, service stations, general store, etc).

We found an excellent parking place and decided to leave the car and hike around the hot springs. The Visitor’s Center was interesting with lots of exhibits of how the hot springs occur and the local wild life.

Before we went hiking around, we had to go in the general store for long sleeve shirts because it is cold up here!

Of course, the minute we buy long sleeve shirts, the sun comes out. But it was shady/cool and sunny/hot all day, so the long sleeves got worn quite a bit.

Our hike around Mammoth started at the the Lower Terrace, a long winding platform that encircles the hot springs. The travertine terraces are formed from limestone deposits from the hot springs. Scientists aren’t sure if the hot springs are fueled by magma from the Yellowstone Caldera or a smaller heat source near the hot springs? Probably the big ol’ volcano waiting to erupt 😜

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These were all really neat to see and to see the difference in color of the travertine deposits. Some of them sparkled like gold and some were as white as snow.

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Once we finished the Lower Terrace, we set off to find the trail to a natural hot spring that hikers discovered. According to our guide book, we were supposed to go to the North Entrance and then drive 2.3 miles … look for gravel lot… it would be down the hill by the third tall blade of grass 🤪 just kidding about the grass but seriously, the directions were clearly not written for (or by) normal people.

As part of the journey to find the hot springs, we made it to the North Entrance… let’s pause right here for a minute. We saw and visited every entrance to Yellowstone National Park!! I know my daddy is smiling from Heaven because we have maximized the heck out of this trip.

Back to today, Michael got out to read a plaque (oh, that makes my heart happy)

And then we got distracted by the sunbeams coming down…

So, we started back again looking for this spot from the guidebook. Allegedly, water from a hot springs joins the cool river, and creates a naturally warm soaking pool. We looked and looked but never could find it (surely not due to such detailed and clear directions) BUT we did find a pretty cool area for boys to get wet.

And it was right by the 45th Parallel

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We met a nice family from Georgia with older teenage boys who continued the hunt for the hot spring (they clearly had the same guide book).

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Later we saw the boys from Georgia and they found where the hot spring was supposed to be but it had been sectioned off by the Park Service. We guessed because so many people were going to the same site. At least we know we were close.

We headed back to the Mammoth Area and found the Justice Center – in case Mike and I want to open a law office in Mammoth.

And then saw a herd of elk cows just napping on the lawn.

We started working our way back south, stopping at ever little spot we wanted. This back windshield cracked Mike and I up 😂

Since we walked the Lower Terrace, we decided to drive the Upper Terrace. Parts of it looked like a winter wonderland where the trees had been burned by a forest fire and the travertine turned white.

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We continued heading south and stopped to hike a bit around the Virginia Cascade.

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One of our favorite was the hike around the Artists Paintpots, an area of hot springs where some are covered with mud instead of water. They bubble and pop.

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This was just cool to watch. We stayed and just watched it bubble for a long time… it’s strangely relaxing 🤣 (just watch it again and again and again)

Mike noticed Monument Geyser Basin as we were driving in so we made a point to stop here. This geyser is literally right beside the road. If it gets much larger, they’ll have to do some serious roadwork.

Our attempt at a selfie here, almost resulted in us going over the rail 🤣

Our last stop was Gibbon Falls. We have been following Gibbon River all day, so we wanted to see these falls in particular. They were absolutely gorgeous!

Rather than one big falls, they were a series of medium sized falls, with a busy little chipmunk population

We just became fascinated watching this guy

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These two have had a great couple of weeks.

One more herd, and we said goodbye to Yellowstone. Its been awesome!

We decided to grab dinner downtown in West Yellowstone. We couldn’t decide where to eat, so we headed downtown and let our noses guide us to Three Bears Restaurant. There was a bit of a wait, so we explored some of the gifts shops nearby.

This Bison has a motion sensor and starts talking when you walk by… he almost gave Michael a heart attack 😂🤣

And they had the best bedroom shoes 🤣

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We headed back to the Three Bears for dinner – Oh my word! We had Bison steaks, regular steaks and chicken fettuccine Alfredo, and it was all delicious. We finished it off with homemade chocolate cake. We will just waddle back to the hotel now…

We have a pretty long drive ahead of us tomorrow- 7 hours total, so Mike dropped us off at the hotel and headed to fill up with gas. We decided to take advantage of one of the hotel’s other amenities- bikes! They had the best time riding in the empty Post Office parking lot next door.

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And one more dip in the hot tub…

I think we have done and seen it all in West Yellowstone. We head into Idaho tomorrow and see our last National Park.