We spent 2 days in the park and seriously had the best time. The kids were in heaven looking for animals. The park wasn't crowded, although still plenty of people there but nothing like summers usually are there.
The first day we did the northern loop. So hit some spring and hot pots but mostly it was looking for animals and boy did we hit the jackpot. The first bison we saw the kids had us turn around, they were amazed this huge animal was just sitting there eating grass. We went all the way out to Lamar Valley. We stopped and saw a moose in a spotting scope although no one could really tell what it was. Then we saw a herd of Elk and after watching them for a minute something set them off and they went 'stampeding down the hill like in the Lion King' (the kids words) We then saw a huge herd of Bison with their babies crossing the street and the kids were in heaven watching them walk along the road right next to us. Then we stopped and saw a bald eagle sitting in a tree, which I thought was pretty amazing. We saw a coyote that looked much better fed then any coyote I've ever seen and then saw a mama and baby bear from super far away (they were literally 2 dots and if someone with a spotting scope hadn't told us we would've had no idea.)
The highlight of the day though was as we drove back towards the entrance right past Mammoth Hot springs all the cars came to a stop. I was driving so I rolled my window down and asked a guy who had parked his car and was walking up towards the way we were going and he said, there is a bear right off the side of the road. Sure enough right off the side of the road there was this huge bear just walking around. As we got up closer we got the best video and pictures of it right as it disappeared back into the bushes. Seriously our timing was incredible to see a bear that close up. The kids were in heaven. I couldn't believe we saw a bear that close up and right by our car...and I was happy we were in the car and not walking.
The 2nd day we did the lower loop. We stopped at lower prismatic springs and as we were walking around, I heard a girl come up to the rangers and tell them that she wanted to report a bear attack. She was ok but kind of crazy to think about. She had gotten attacked on the Fairy Falls trail which is the trail we went on next to get to upper pristmatic spring overlook. Luckily there were a lot of people around so we were safe but I heard later that they closed that trail for a couple days to let the bear clear the area. On our way down from that hike we got to the very end and there was a bridge with a bison on the other side of the bridge. The rangers wouldn't let us cross the bridge. We sat there for about 45 minutes waiting for that bison to move. The kids were pretty unhappy because it was hot and it was lunch time. So we sat watching the bison eat his lunch, drink some water from the river and then slowly meandered off and we were finally able to cross and get some lunch.
We saw Old Faithful which was fun for the kids. We kept telling the kids that it wasn't that big and we would tease them when we saw little small water shoots saying it's just a touch bigger than that. So when Old Faithful actually went off they were pretty amazed at how big it was and how long it went for.
We then did the drive around the rest, seeing Yellowstone lake, the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and Yellowstone falls. Another super fun day.
We left only disappointed that we didn't see a wolf and a moose. As we were driving home through Island Park, we were following a car and right in front of that car a mama moose and her baby ran across the highway. It was perfect timing to see them and we felt like our trip was complete after that point.
Our kids thought Yellowstone was just about the coolest place ever and we had a blast of a trip. Little do they know that we can never go back because there is no way another trip there will be as good as this one was.
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