We actually haven’t done a ton of research on each of the parks we are going to…we realize that for the most part, if it’s a National Park, it’s worth seeing, and we know the highlights from many of them that we grew up seeing (and see continuously on Instagram:  Horseshoe Bend, anyone?).  

We of course knew that Yellowstone had Old Faithful, and was a big park…and that was about as much as we knew before we were approaching it.  The kids have an awesome National Park Adventure Guide that the Heckels gave them, and for each park it has a quick description, a top 10 activity list, what animal to look for and a spot for notes, stamps, sketches, etc.  And a sticker!  All with an awesome “poster” design for each park that is in the spirit of the WPA posters that were created way back when.  We also have a Secrets of the National Parks book that the Yaden’s gave us that suggests what to see beyond the sights that will have flocks of crowds.  And, I nerdily love the newspaper and map that you get as you enter each park.

So, we are falling into a routine that goes like this:  as we are driving to the park (usually 3+ hours in the car), the kids read out the highlights from their book, and I read snippets from the Secrets book.  Then we get our National Park paper/map and plan out some of the things we want to see most.

Back to Yellowstone.  Basically this whole area is on top of a Super Volcano (read up on that when you can’t sleep one night and want one more doomsday scenario to worry about…), which has hundreds of geysers, steam vents and bubbling springs fueled by this underground pressure.  They are scattered all over the park, one after the other.  You are just driving along in your car and see a steaming pond, or a hole in the ground puffing out steam.  In one very cool span of four  hours we were lucky enough to see White Dome Geyser, and Pink Cone Geyser go off within minutes of one another, and then rode our bikes down an old service road and get to the end JUST in the nick of time to see the Lone Star Geyser going off.  

If the geysers are dramatic, forceful outlets for the underground pressure, then the hot springs are the gorgeous, artistic version.   The minerals and the temperature of the water creates all the variations in colors you see that are so pretty and dramatic with yellows and oranges alongside the brightest of blues and deep greens.  And the overflow from the springs can create organic features that look like something you would see inside Mammoth Cave..layers of sediment that flow from one little pool to another like a giant (acidic, boiling) layer cake.   

Plus there is the added thrill of knowing that it’s all life-threatening…step off the boardwalk in the wrong place and the earth could crack and the crust collapse and you can fall into a cavern of boiling sulphuric acid.  Whoa!  The kids thought it was odd that there seemed to be full fencing everywhere EXCEPT where the ground looked the “crustiest.”  I didn’t know how to explain that one.  

The overall impact of all these hundreds of geothermal features spread out over hundreds of square miles is to really make you think about how big that super volcano under your feet is…and how much heat it must be generating to create these basins that are so active.  Spewing boiling water hundreds of feet into the air, and thousands of gallons of boiling water overflowing streams all day long.  I also think (hope) that seeing so many of them over three days really helped the kids soak in and understand more about what they are, how they are made, etc.

Yellowstone is HUGE.  That’s the other thing that surprised us.  It’s 3,400 square miles (which is about 9X the size of Louisville, for comparison).  There are two big driving loops; the first day we set out to do the northern loop at about 9:30 am, and didn’t get back to our campsite until 10 pm…and we even skipped a hike and shortened a few things we wanted to spend more time seeing.  The geothermal features are just one section of the park; the whole eastern side of the park is more about forests and valleys and hiking, and also this incredible “Grand Canyon” that the Yellowstone river has cut through the park, with waterfalls and incredibly high sheer cliffs.  The walls are mostly a yellow stone…is this why it’s called Yellowstone?, we wondered?  But I’m ashamed to say we never found out.  Whoops.  

It’s also an amazing wildlife sanctuary.  I’m not sure it would even be possible to drive through without seeing a big animal…you’d have to be sleeping, maybe.  Just driving around we saw elk, bear in the woods (grizzly and black), bison, and pronghorns.  We also got the kids up super early one day to try to get some good looks at wildlife, and also to avoid the crowds here in the high season, and it was definitely worth it!  We saw bison trotting alongside the road and a black bear crossed right in front of us.

Oh yeah…and we saw Old Faithful go off twice.