When COVID-19 hit as a nationwide pandemic back around mid-March (maybe earlier for others), I had not yet planned on what I would do for a vacation for 2020. The year before, I had taken my dream trip traveling through a dozen states in two weeks and I knew that level of trip wasn’t likely to be replicated.
As the weeks of being quarantined and having to live much more isolated than I was used to, I decided to work on planning a trip to places that wouldn’t be shut down due to crowd concerns and would allow me to stay socially distanced from people while seeing some new places. Having already camped out a couple of times and finding a low number of people at those locations, I felt good about putting together a trip that would take me to several national parks and monuments in the western part of the U.S. - with Yellowstone National Park as the ultimate destination.
As I mentioned before, the year before I had taken a dream trip and visited places I had always wanted to see at some point in my life - the Gateway Arch, Wrigley Field, the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Graceland were just some of those places I was able to see. By the time I left Yellowstone, however, I realized this was a place that have always been a centerpiece of must-see places on my “bucket list.”
On the fourth full day of the trip (which just happened to be Labor Day), I came in from the north via Montana, arriving at the north entrance. With snow in the forecast for that afternoon, I was in a bit of a rush but I also had numerous spots I wanted to see while I was there. And despite lots of research and planning ahead of time, I was not prepared for just how large the park was and how long it would take to get through the entire park. My advice for anything looking to plan a trip there in the future - make sure you give yourself at least two days and try for more if you have the time.
The first area I was able to check out was Mammoth Springs, which was a mixture of hot and cold and a great way to start out. I maneuvered my way south, checking out a series of geysers, creeks and falls along the west side of the park. Each stop brought a unique nature formation and was something I had never experienced prior to that moment.
As if the natural formations weren’t cool enough in the morning, seeing Fountain Paint Pot and Grand Prismatic around lunchtime was really impressive. The various colors emanating from the ground created scenery that my camera phone could only begin to show. And as exciting as it had been up until then, I knew I needed to keep moving so I could get to what is the most popular site at Yellowstone.
I arrived at Old Faithful relatively early in the afternoon and apparently arrived just minutes after it had performed a show for the crowd. The great thing about Old Faithful and a big reason it has that name is that it reliably spews hot water out of the ground numerous times a day and it was predicted that it would do so again within 90 minutes of my arrival. True to form, Old Faithful provided to be just that and did provide a brief show (somewhere around five minutes of actual water spewing routinely in the air) for the hundreds of us who sat around the fenced off area.
The cold that preceded the predicted snow was setting in and, of course, I had left my jacket in the rental car so I was eager to get moving after the geyser went back to being dormant. I hurried back to the vehicle (a small SUV for the mountainous drive), warmed up and got back on the road.
As it was mid-afternoon and I was only about halfway through the park, I knew I had a challenge ahead of me to get through the rest of Yellowstone. Unfortunately, I only made it another hour and had made it through the Yellowstone Lake section of the lake when the snow began to fall. So, I worked on making my way out of the south entrance to the park and focused on getting somewhere warm and getting back to the park the next day.
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