Yellowstone National Park: The Most Majestic Place on Earth

By Lisa Kroulik © August 8, 2011

My family and I experienced our first time visiting Yellowstone National Park just six days ago and I will say unequivocally that it was worth the several months of advance planning and the 18-hour drive we made from Minnesota to get there. Some of the sights I saw at Yellowstone were so beautiful that I literally gasped. Suffice to say, once we returned home and got all of our photos uploaded, we had a new screensaver that will serve as a permanent reminder to what we saw there.

Yellowstone Basics

There are several entrances to the park, so if you are planning a visit, you should try to camp in the park itself or find a hotel as near to it as possible. We were just minutes away from the south entrance in the city of West Yellowstone, Montana. It cost $25 for a day pass for a vehicle and that could get you in free for the next seven days. Unfortunately, we lost ours and paid the fee two days in a row, but we considered it cheap entertainment for a family of four for an entire day.

Stuff I Never Knew About Yellowstone

If you drive the loop of Yellowstone National Park in its entirety, you will drive for 142 miles and spend at least a day and a half covering the entire park. We spend our entire first day of vacation at Yellowstone and part of the second and most likely didn’t even see all of the south side of the park.

I also didn’t know that Yellowstone was the first national park in the United States and didn’t allow vehicle traffic until 1915.

The Geysers

After you have been in Yellowstone for a while, you will begin to take erupting geysers and bubbling brooks for granted. Old Faithful is the largest geyser in Yellowstone, and it happened to be on the south side where we were touring. It erupts approximately every 83 minutes, and we were able to view its eruption and capture 30 seconds of it on video.

The Animals

Despite numerous warnings about large animals crossing the road any time they felt like it, our animal viewing experience was limited to several elk grazing and one bison just lying around leisurely. An animal sighting will stop traffic in Yellowstone, as we soon found out.

The Bottom Line

Put Yellowstone on your bucket list today!