Yellowstone National Park: Pt 2
Yellowstone National Park was the second stop in my 9-day road trip. My sister and I took off in the car for a 9-day adventure to take in as many national parks as we could. We had no itinerary and didn’t book anything in advance, each day we took in as much as we could and planned our next stop as we went. We spent two days exploring Yellowstone, if you haven’t read the first part of my experience in Yellowstone you can head over here to check it out! I loved exploring Yellowstone National Park, we were slightly limited to the spots we could explore because of fires in the park but it was still an incredible experience. The hike to Fairy Falls was my favorite part of Yellowstone and is my must-see recommendation if you visit!
The trail to Fairy Falls is right by the Midway Geyser Basin and I would highly recommend hiking to the falls. Overall I’d say this was my favorite sight we saw in Yellowstone. Our goal was to start on the trail before noon, it gets busier as the day goes on so we wanted to try to avoid the crowds if possible. It wasn’t super busy when we got to the falls so we were able to get some great photos! We sat and enjoyed the waterfall ate a few snacks and made friends with a chunky chipmunk.
We crossed to the other side of the stream to get these shots, I loved being able to get this view of the waterfall and made for some of my favorite pictures here. The waterfall lets off a pretty cool breeze which was perfect after the hike to get there! If you can I highly recommend bringing a polaroid camera along with you on your adventures. The polaroids capture the moment in a way that your camera just doesn’t & honestly I don’t think I’ve ever taken a bad polaroid. Somehow they just always come out looking perfect?! Anyway, they are my favorite keepsake from any adventure and I love looking back at them after the trip has finished. There are so many ways to display your polaroids after your trip I have mine in picture frames, scrapbooks, and flip frames.
Our last stop in Yellowstone was Norris Geyser Basin and my honest opinion is that it isn’t worth it. We got here later in the day so the parking and lines were quite long. Overall we kind of felt like once you’ve seen one geyser you’ve seen them all. There were two trails to take and we were pretty worn out after the hike to Fairy Falls so we took the shorter trail. It was pretty to look at but we walked the path and maybe spent 30 minutes total here. The longer trail might have been better to explore, but we were pretty tired and decided that we just wanted to get to our campsite for the night and make dinner. Looking back I wish we would have gone to Old Faithful instead, I think it might have been more interesting to see than the Norris Geyser Basin.
We were pretty tired after a day full of hiking so we decided it was time to head to our campground. When we drove into Yellowstone we passed Buffalo Bill State Park and couldn’t stop thinking about how gorgeous the campground was. The sites were right by the lake and had the most incredible view. Since we couldn’t get it out of our heads we decided to head back to that campground to sleep! We got a site closest to the lake & had the best view. I wandered down to the shore to get a better look and snap a few photos. There was a storm rolling in so we didn’t have as much time to enjoy the lake as we wanted, we quickly made some dinner and then hopped in the car at nightfall. We slept in the car at the campground & were so thankful because it was a rainy windy night. This was by far my favorite spot we slept at the entire road trip, you really can’t beat the view at the North Shore Campground in Buffalo Bill State Park.
Our plan was to head to Grand Teton National Park the next day! It is just south of Yellowstone National Park so we thought this campsite was the perfect spot to stay close to both parks and get take in a gorgeous view one more time. My sister and I both agreed that this was our favorite spot we slept on the whole trip! Our next stop was Grand Teton National Park, my favorite national park of them all so far.
