Yellowstone National Park

The family went to Yellowstone National Park for seven days in August 2007. We stayed in the park every night, in Grant Village. Below are the top 5 and worst 5 things about Yellowstone, which I highly recommend that everyone see at least once in their lifetime.


Top 5

1. Geysers: highest concentration of geysers in the world.
















2. Grand Canyon of Yellowstone: includes multiple water falls, including a 300-foot one that dumps 37K gallons of water per second.

3. Wildlife: saw bison, black bear, coyote, elk, deer, pika, fish, osprey...

4. Nature

5. Hot Springs: the hotter the water, the less living organisms, so you can tell the temperature of the spring by the colors it displays (blue is hotter)

Bottom 5
1. traffic: the roads are all two-lanes throughout the park, but they have many pull-outs for slow traffic. Unfortunately, most drivers have huge egos and won't use them, even when they are 15 mph under the speed limit. Some say that it is a vacation and you should relax and enjoy looking at the back of a camper going 20 mph for 45 minutes on a road, but I say those people are full of shit and selfish. Yellowstone is beautiful, but not when sitting in a car on a road. If you want to enjoy the scenery, park the car and get out and look. Otherwise, drive the speed limit... if I wanted to spend my entire day in a car, I would have spent my vacation buying something at a Wal-Mart.


2. morons: I am not sure what it is about National Parks, but a lot of morons congregate here... people who can't read speed limit signs, don't know how to order food, forget how to walk on the right side on a four-foot wide wood path above boiling water.... if I wanted to spend my entire day in with morons, I would have spent my vacation buying something at a Wal-Mart.

3. food: the food is surprisingly pretty poor. Yellowstone has a vendor, Xantera, run all of the lodging and food restaurants in Yellowstone. While I expect to get hammered over the price as in any resort or protected area away from competition (and they say capitalism is bad), I didn't expect the quality to be significantly worse than dorm food.... If I wanted to spend my entire day eating bad food, I would have..... nah, it doesn't really fit here.

4. prices - gas, hotel, food, souvenirs: It is to be expected, but that doesn't mean I like it. Gas was 40 cents a gallon higher, and a poster for $16 was only $5 just 25 miles South at a visitor's center in the Grand Teton National Park. Explain that.

5. Mammoth Hot Springs: It looks neat in a picture, but in person, it is pretty bare, dry, and disappointing, compared to the rest of the attractions. It isn't that it should be skipped, but expectations need to be significantly lowered to avoid disappointment after the long drive North (unless you entered Yellowstone from the North Montana entrance, but who is doing that?).