Our Honeymoon, Part Three: Yellowstone

Yellowstone National Park is the first national park and one of the most visited places in America. This also makes it one of the most crowded. We spent the majority of our trip here because there truly is so much to see and do.  There are things in Yellowstone that you won’t find anywhere else in the world. Between the geysers, mountains, lakes, hikes and wildlife, there is more than enough to keep you busy in Yellowstone.

In case you missed it, you can read our full honeymoon itinerary here and about our visits to Grand Teton National Park, Salt Lake City and Jackson Hole. 

Where We Stayed

Under Canvas

We’re not the most outdoorsy people in the world.  Growing up I did go camping with friends’ families or stayed in cabins at sleepaway camps.  My only real requirement was real bathrooms.

I stumbled upon Under Canvas while planning our trip and knew we had to stay here.  We decided that one night of glamping was a good amount of ‘roughing it’ for us.  This also happened to be our most expensive night of the entire trip.

Of course we didn’t expect it to be less than 30 degrees in the middle of June when we booked this months ago.  Thankfully the tents really are cozy – super warm blankets and a wood burning stove.  Just don’t do what we did and sleep too long that the fire burns out and wake up freezing in the middle of the night.

The campground is only a 15 minute drive from the west entrance to Yellowstone.  Its close enough to be convenient but far enough from civilization that you really feel like you’re disconnecting.  The sunset and the sky full of stars were unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.

You check in at a big tent that had a fire pit and a guy singing and playing guitar.  They help you bring your luggage to your tent with golf carts.  A staff member taught us our to start our fire.

Shirt / Vest / Sweatpants / Boots

Pines at Island Park

I originally found these cabins through AirBnB. Someone posted the name in their review (all of the reviews were very positive), so I was able to find their website (where I found more positive reviews) and book directly through them (and save a little money).

The cabins are about a half hour away from the West Yellowstone entrance.  Our little cabin was the coziest and a lot fancier than expected.  We loved having a full kitchen and our own jacuzzi on the porch.  The bathroom even had heated floors (I’m from Florida – is this a thing normal people have?) We stayed here for four nights.  After long days at the park, this was the perfect place to come home to every night.

Where to eat if you stay in Island Park, ID (there’s really no reason to go here unless you’re staying here or driving through): We ate most meals at (or got takeout from) Pond’s.  Its a nice sports bar with TV’s everywhere and the pizza is delish.  They’re open later than most places in the area. We also tried Trout Hunter but we were disappointed to find out they don’t serve trout.  And the only fish on the menu is halibut, which they were out of the night we were there. I ordered the cheese plate appetizer as my meal – so good!

What we did:

So. Much.

Yellowstone is HUGE and there is so much to see.  Yes, unfortunately, there is a lot of driving and car time involved.  But the sights are worth every minute of it. I’ve seen tips about avoiding the crowds – and yes, getting there early helps. You won’t have to wait as long at the entrance and it should be easier to find parking. But, unless you plan on doing an all day hike, eventually you will find the crowds.  We found it was best to have an idea of where we wanted to go each day but kept our schedule pretty open.  You never know how long you’ll need or want to spend at each stop.  And you really never know when you’ll end up in traffic for 2 hours because a herd of bison is casually walking down the road.

Old Faithful

Our first day in Yellowstone was the second half of our last day in Grand Tetons.  We drove through both parks to get to our tent. Most of the ranger stations have the next eruption time posted, give or take about 10 minutes.  I’m glad we made this stop later in the day because this is a major tourist stop and we thankfully didn’t have to deal with too large of a crowd. We got there a little early for the expected eruption time and it started drizzling, so we explored one of the nearby hotels.  We made our way back outside and huddled together on one of the benches for warmth and watched the geyser eruption.

 

Norris Geyser Basin

This is one of the major stops, so we pulled in hoping to find some lunch.  There weren’t any restaurants here but we figured we could check it off our list while we were there.  Worth a quick stop to see all of the small geysers – just be aware it smells awful.

Mammoth Hot Springs

We continued north through Yellowstone in search of food.  And of course had to add an extra half hour to our drive because of a construction road closure.  By the time we got to the Mammoth Hot Springs Visitor area, the restaurant we planned to eat at was closed between lunch and dinner.  We recharged with shitty burgers at the Terrace Grill. And we were ready to start exploring again.

I couldn’t believe how close we were able to get to some wildlife here.  We spotted some female elk with their babies (and learned the only time you’ll see the males and females together is during mating season). There was a few elk just chillin on the grass in the middle of a roundabout in the parking lot.  And some more with their babies right by some houses.  There was a park ranger close by to ensure everyone kept a safe distance away. Someone had to be airlifted to the hospital after being charged by an elk the week before we were there.

The hot springs looks like its covered in snow.  Which was strange because it was super hot out when we were there.  But its actually just a ton of microorganisms that give it that white color.

On our way out of the park we hit some major turn-your-car-off-traffic.  I decided to take my camera and find out what was causing the hold up.  I didn’t bring my phone (there was basically zero cell service inside the park) and ended up walking for almost 2 hours.  Every person that would be walking back towards me said they didn’t see anything but heard there was bison. Quitters. All of a sudden there was a huge herd of bison walking down the street towards me. I started taking pictures and then realized I was stuck.  I definitely did not want to be walking in front of a ton of bison (especially protective ones with babies). And I couldn’t just hide next to a car as they were on both sides of the road weaving in and out of cars. So I kinda panicked a little and actually got into a stranger’s car. We waited til the entire herd was a safe 25 yards away and then I followed slowly behind to get back to my husband.

I love how some of the pictures make it look like they’re casually just stuck in traffic with everyone else.  At one point a few of them did stop walking because they were scared of a kid sitting on a rock in their path.  The park ranger that was following behind them in his car made him move out of their way.  Its amazing how these massive animals are scared of us.

West Yellowstone

There’s the western part of Yellowstone and the West Yellowstone entrance, but there is also the town of West Yellowstone right outside the park. Its a popular area for lodging, dining, and shopping.  After spending way too much time sitting in traffic, we decided to take a break from Yellowstone one day.  Besides just lounging in our cabin, we spent some time in West Yellowstone.  We bought some postcards to send to our family. Had lunch and obviously ice cream, shopped a little at the ‘mall’ (aka tourist trap shops) and found a grocery store for champagne and food to make breakfasts at our cabin.

Booties / Jeans / Bag

Grand Prismatic

Grand Prismatic was on the top of my list for spots to visit in Yellowstone.  The rainbow of super saturated colors and the contrast of the turquoise blue and rusty orange are just so beautiful. We purposely got into the park early to beat the crowds this day.  Even though we have no line getting inside Yellowstone, Grand Prismatic was already crowded.  I know you can’t go back in time but I was starting to regret not getting there even earlier because the parking lot was full. Took a deep breath, decided to be a little patient and was able to find a spot pretty quickly as people were leaving.  I felt much better when we met a family who was visiting Grand Prismatic for the second time that day because earlier in the morning it was too foggy to see anything.  Life lessons – patience and go with the flow.

Fairy Falls

One of my sorority sisters who had visited Yellowstone just before us recommended hiking Fairy Falls for the perfect view of Grand Prismatic from above. My jacket and long sleeve layers both came off on the hike up and I love how in the picture below Jon looks like he’s ready for Winter and I’m 100% in Summer. Also shoutout to the lady who took our picture because her kids were tired of her taking their picture.

Tank top

Canyon Village

This visitor center is another main stop inside Yellowstone.  There is a lot of lodging, gift shops, and food options here.  There is also a ranger station, little museum, and a post office.  The village is pretty centrally located so we stopped here a couple times.  We had lunch here one day. Again, food inside the park really isn’t great, but it was convenient. And I found snow! You better believe I was the happiest Floridian throwing a snow ball!

 

Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

Lower Falls

I spoke to a ranger at Canyon Village and she very passionately recommended visiting the lower falls.  You hike down to get there and then have a somewhat steep hike on the way back up. You stand right next to the top of the waterfall.  When we were there the waterfall created the most beautiful rainbow in the canyons.

Upper Falls

We then got back in our car and headed to the upper falls.  Uncle Tom’s Trail is a popular and beautiful hike, but was closed while we were there. We continued driving (a few mins) to Artist Point.  This is one of the most iconic and photographed places in Yellowstone. But according to the ranger that doesn’t make it the best.  (Like I said, she was very passionate about the lower falls). I’m glad we did both because we could see the waterfall from the other side and found the spot where we were just standing next to it.

Lamar Valley

Lamar Valley is known for being a great area to spot wildlife.  This road/area is on the northeast part of Yellowstone.  We ended up saving this for the last day because it was far from where we were staying.  After driving by a few other places we had gone to earlier in the week, and driving through a snow fall at about 10k feet on the edge of a mountain.  (Thank goodness for my New Yorker husband was driving). Eventually, we started our drive through the Lamar Valley. We didn’t have a specific destination, just hopes of seeing all the wildlife.  We picked a couple landmarks on our map as stopping points to turn around.

Yes, all of those little dots in the picture above are bison.

We went on a moose hunt (but don’t worry – we only wanted to shoot them with our camera). We had reached our last ‘stopping point’ and hadn’t seen any moose yet.  One of the rangers told us we were in moose country and to keep going. We ended up leaving the northeast entrance of the park into the next town and sadly never found any moose.

Anytime we would see others pulled over we would stop to see what people were looking at. This is the best way to spot wildlife (especially if you’re new here).  We pulled off once for a huge crowd and everyone was saying there was a bald eagle.  We took a bunch of pictures only to realize when we got home and looked at the bigger pictures, it was an osprey.

Petrified Tree

After a somewhat disappointing animal hunt, we felt like we needed to make one more stop somewhere, anywhere really.  We spent a significant amount of time in the car this day and just needed to get out and walk.  The petrified tree was labeled on our map and close by.  We walked up to find a tree stump surrounded by a fence.  Womp womp…

We decided to go on the hiking trail just passed the tree to stretch our legs a little more.  We got up to the top of the hill and were about to turn back because we were’t really sure where we were going. There was a family up ahead of us and I saw them stopped and pointing at something.  We quickly caught up to them to see what they were looking at.  There was a bear and her 3 cubs! Not sure if this is true but we were told there was only one bear who had triplets this year in Yellowstone.  The most terrifying and exciting moment of our trip.  For the best wildlife sightings, you really do need to get out of the (protective) car.  We were close enough to be scared but far enough that we didn’t get any great pictures. But also thank goodness we didn’t forget our bear spray.

As we were walking back (quickly – because we didn’t want to be attacked by a bear) we were joined on our hike by a fox. We pretended not to notice him and just kept walking until he got far enough ahead and we could breathe again.  Imagine surviving a bear and then being attached by a little fox!

Let’s be honest – nothing was going to beat a bear sighting. This was the perfect way to end our time at Yellowstone National Park.

Read more about our other honeymoon stops:

Full Itinerary

Jackson Hole

Grand Teton National Park

Salt Lake City