After a couple of weeks on the road, generally trying to get far enough west to make Tadd smile… we made it to our first National Park…. Yellowstone!! We have been really excited about checking out some the amazing natural areas of the U.S.
We drove in through the east gate, and luckily something triggered Tadd’s memory and he got us hooked up with an interagency pass getting us into all the National Parks and more for just $80USD for a whole year… SCORE!!!
We climbed up and over the Sylvan Pass and finally got our first glimpse of what lay ahead.
Having passed a crowd on the main road (apparently there a mother brown bear and her cub had been spotted…. but no sign of them by the time we got there), we stopped off a few miles into the park for our first hike of the day at Indian Pond, along Storm Point trail.
Happily this was not a popular spot, so we had the whole trail to ourselves… or so we thought!
After a quick stop at the visitors center, and lunch on the side of the road, we set off to bike the trail to Natural Bridge… finally an actual bike trail!
Of course, no trip to Yellowstone would be complete without a visit to Old Faithful (well, at least when it’s your first visit!)
We stopped in to the Lodge and the Inn to explore the classic hotels
And then a little further north we reached the Grand Prismatic…
As we wound our way back over the Continental Divide for the 5th time… we fit in a quick stop for a waterfall.
From here it was time to head south out of the park, on another whirlwind taster of U.S. and out into the spectacular Grand Tetons.
And then we turned the corner…
I had found us another free campsite in the Bridger-Teton National Forest just off the main road a few miles to the east…
Given the amazing location and the fact that Tadd owns an original print taken somewhere just below us in the valley, we renamed the spot “The Ansel Adams Campsite,” Moran, WY.
