July 13
I have quite a few memories of Yellowstone from when I visited with my family about 30 years ago. One of which was a bison that was hanging around Old Faithful and another was of a foolish tourist approaching a mama bear and her cubs. We didn’t get to see bears in the park on this trip, but we did get to see some wildlife.
We arrived at West Yellowstone, MT and parked the trailer at a KOA. Other than the location, there isn’t much to recommend this KOA. Kids enjoyed playing mini golf, but the course was all concrete. We were happy to be able to have a campfire. First time since Tennessee. Due to fire hazards we haven’t been able to have a fire or charcoal grill for the majority of the trip.
Oh no! There are bison at the geyser.
Once we unhitched the trailer, we headed in to go see Old Faithful. This is the geyser that I remember the most from my trip with my grandparents. I distinctly remember how a mounted park ranger was at the geyser keeping an eye on the bison (and more likely tourists) to make sure no one got hurt. I gave the kids several lectures on how to deal with wildlife and how they can easily hurt someone. I enjoyed Brian mentioning how foolish the tourists are whenever we saw someone getting way to close to the Bison that we finally saw later. We did stop to see several geysers on the way to old faithful.
Thar she blows
Several of the geysers have been affected by local earthquakes. Even Old Faithful has been affected. They still know approximately when it will go but they give a 10 min +/- window. Several of the others are drier than they have been in the past. They are still amazing to see and watch. Sean did not enjoy the smell at most of the smaller geysers. Both boys loved when Old Faithful erupted. We ended our night with s’mores and reminding the boys about bear/food etiquette. We scoured the campfire and made sure that no wrapper or scrap of food was left out to encourage some visitors that we wouldn’t enjoy.
July 13
Foolish Tourist
We hitched up to leave today and followed the northern loop through Yellowstone to head to our next trailer park in Greybull, Wy. The loops are totally different from each other. The Southern loop is forest but peppered with geysers, while the Northern loop is forest dotted with grassy plains, rivers and a beautiful lake. What we really enjoyed about the upper loop was seeing more bison than we ever dreamed we would.
I do have to say that I am happy that we left the park without seeing any bears (other than the stuffed kind in the gift shops). We did see several very foolish tourist get entirely too close to bison. There was one bison in particular that was very close to the road. People actually stopped their car right next to it and several people walked up to the side of that car to look over at the bison. Brian and I didn’t stop at that bison. We stopped at a very large grass land with a creek and we used zoom quite a bit for our pictures.
Greybull KOA
We stopped at the KOA in Greybull, Wy and the owners were absolutely fantastic. I think this was the best one we have been too. We recieved a free water for each of us and were guided to our site. They have been the only ones who actually mentioned that they read our request for a site with easy entry and exiting since we are new to trailering. We also got the most amazing spot which couldn’t have been easier to get into or out of. I especially liked that this KOA is green and had an easy to get to recycling area. Brian and Sean loved the playground and we all enjoyed the HEATED pool. Well Sean enjoyed watching Brian and I race each other in the pool while he relaxed in a recliner.
Next stop – Close Encounters in South Dakota
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