Photography: Yellowstone's Upper Loop...

I don’t think I could pick a favorite place within Yellowstone National Park. They are all so unique and different. I’m not a huge fan of the sulfur smell at the hot springs, but they are pretty cool to watch. The waterfalls are beautiful and the landscape changes so much throughout the park. First it’s grasslands, then mountains, then trees, then barren rocks. I loved seeing as much as we can, but I wish we had planned a little more time to walk around different areas longer.

Photography: Yellowstone's Lower Loop...

On our recent family road trip we knew we really wanted to see Yellowstone. Originally we were only going to be there for one night but I really wanted to have more time so we stayed two nights in west Yellowstone. We could have spent far longer… Yellowstone is HUGE. The first day we drove the lower loop so we could see Old Faithful. I had no idea how many places we’d find to stop along the way. The park is amazing and around each bend in the road is another landscape more breathtaking than the one we left behind. I truly could have spent weeks here.

Road Trip Day 11...

DAY 11: We knew we had to get an early start today if we were going to do the entire upper loop drive of Yellowstone. We were packed, checked out and on the road by 7am. It was another chilly morning and before leaving the tents we grabbed some hot cocoas to go. Oliver loved that hot cocoa machine and that he could do it all by himself. I had the boys jump out of the car at the west entrance to take their picture next to the sign, cause there wasn't a crowd like yesterday.

We briefly stopped at Norse Geyser Basin (which looked like we could have spent all day there) to use the bathroom. Oliver was excited to see a park ranger there so he could finally ask his question, "why is it called Yellowstone?". The park ranger was really nice and gave us the short version.

After finding the bathroom, which is why we stopped in the first place, we drove to Mammoth Hot spring. It was pretty interesting. I loved that Oliver was all about reading the signs and plaque's around the park. This spot though really frustrated him- as there wasn't a big giant arrow pointing to "the devils thumb" near Pallette spring (I think its the big black rock). We argued debated a little while and then agreed to just enjoy the hot spring.

We did end up stopping in the town at Mammoth Springs to check out the gift shop and grab a snack. When we were driving through we saw a herd of elk just laying beside one of the building. That was cool.

Tower falls was a quick stop and then we stopped to get a picture with Lucius and a buffalo. This buffalo also started coming toward us and ended up crossing the street just in front of our car. Lucius LOVED seeing every single Buffalo. Oliver at one point said to him "hey bike shirt, you're the biggest fan of buffalo in the world". (Lucius had been wearing a bike shirt at the time). I have to admit I liked seeing them too.

After stopping to take a picture of that one buffalo, we drove down the road. Not to far away there was at least 100 buffalo along the side of the road. People were stopping and blocking traffic. It was crazy, thankfully we had our buffalo picture so we passed them slowly and kept going. Oliver's favorite thing to see in Yellowstone was the hot springs. Before we left the park he wanted to see "just one more". So we pulled over at Sulphur Caldron to look.

That was our last Yellowstone stop before leaving the park. We managed to get to Cody, WY about 2:15pm and decided to eat our very late lunch there. Then it was back in the car for mandatory naps, you don't have to sleep but you have to close your eyes. (We used this a few times on the road trip and almost every time they slept). This time Lucius took a 2 hour nap and Oliver slept for 3 hours.

They woke up in time to see the views while we drove through Big Horn National Forest.

We made it to Gillette, WY by 7:15pm so there was still time to swim in the pool. The boys sketched in their art books, read Harry Potter and then went to bed.

To see more photos from Yellowstone's upper Loop drive (click here).