Yellowstone park is one the the most beautiful and unusual places on Earth to visit. It's easy to spend days and weeks exploring and you never are going to get bored. Our trip there was way too short - just two days. What can you do there if you have two days? Not much... just make a drive around the park on the main road and stop on the main viewpoints. But it is still worth doing even if you have not enough time for hikes or to look at anything outside the main route.
Early September is a really good time to take a trip to Yellowstone
National Park. Why? For many reasons and the first is the weather -
it's already not toasty hot, but also still not freezing cold (we,
actually, filed for an exception and got one ;) but we'll talk about it
later). Another reason is the crowd - there are much fewer people here
in September when students return to school. So we started from Denver
late Friday and planned to drive 500 miles overnight. We wanted to see
the sunrise in the park... and we got it! It was around 6AM when we
reached the south entrance and was driving along Yellowstone Lake...
It took a while to drive along the lake coast and reach the Fishing
Bridge. In the beginning we hardly could see the lake but later the huge
body of water began glowing in the darkness. It was amazing to see how
the sun rays were creating some mystical designs on the side of the
road...
We reached the Fishing Bridge just in time. In time to see the sun
rolling above the horizon line and tinting everything in pink and
orange...
The thick layer of fog covered the water like a blanket. The river
looked mysterious and we were staying there and waiting for something to
happen. What were we waiting for? Have no idea... probably for mermaids
to surface and laugh at us ;)
But honestly... we really were unable to leave this place.. We
spend half an hour watching the fog moving above the surface,
disappearing and coming back... By the way, despite the name - Fishing
Bridge, the huge sign at the end of the bridge reads - "No fishing from
the bridge". Isn't it weird?
But finally we left this hundred year old bridge and moved further,
entered the park and... immediately stopped, enchanted with the smoky
columns of steam rising from the ground. Devil's Kitchen carries the
name for a reason...
At the end of the trail we found something even stranger... the
hole in the ground looked like the mouth of the dragon who was spewing
steam and heat... We turned around and found a sign - "Dragon's Mouth" ;)
Yellowstone is one of the five largest geyser valleys in the world.
And everything around us just confirmed that - we saw small hot
fountains, steam spewing from the small holes, something gurgled and we
were covered with white fog and steam. Honestly - it was an absolutely
unreal and amazing feeling and if any of us still had any doubts about
spending the night in a car to get there, now they were completely on
board with the rest of us and were eager to explore this land of
enchantment...
Click here to find out what happened next - Yellowstone Park - buffalos and waterfalls - Part 2
Pictures were taken on September 3, 2010.
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