Day 1 in Yellowstone National Park (11 Jul 2009)

After 13 hours plus of driving, we (CP, SS, SL and I) finally arrived to West Entrance of Yellowstone National Park safely, I think CP and SL should be really tired as they were the drivers of our journey but they still kept awake for our day trip. And SL told me that he couldn't just sleep right in the car because the national park is so beautiful that he didn't want to miss it, I am agree with this, Yellowstone National Park is so beautiful and special to us, this is my first time to a US National Park and nth time for SL, but SL told me Yellowstone NP is the best ever among his visits.

A picture taken at West Entrance of Yellowstone NP.


As per we planned, we would spend our first day at South West area of Yellowstone NP, which is from West Entrance to Madison, Madison to Old Faithful and Old Faithful to Grant Village area.

Our first ever stop in Yellowstone NP is Madison, it is just 14 miles away from West Entrance, the special one that we saw around Madison area is Artist Paint Pot, it was just like a boilding mudpot, and I heard explaination from a ranger, the colour would change from time to time due to temperature changes, I was wondering how does it look alike at different temperature, but I only could see it in grey colour on my first day morning.


Just started from Madison area, we were abled to see lot of hot spring and geyser, and Yellowstone NP is the place with the most of hot spring and geyser in the world and it is the first National Park in US, where we could find some wildlifes there as well.

















Here we were abled to record some explanation on Fountain Paint Pot from a ranger's speech.




They are bison and its calf, some people also called them buffalo, they are the largest animal in North America, before the Yellowstone NP established, they were nearly extincted by fur traders for harvesting their fur.




After that, we were at Old Faithful about 12pm as we were told that we should be there at 12pm to see the highest geyser eruption in Yellowstone NP, but we were wrong because the Old Faithful Geyser is erupted approximate every 91 minutes, therefore we waited for about an hour for it erupted at around 1pm, which was an hour delay from our information.

Old Faithful Geyser is one of the famous geyser in Yellowstone NP with its high and long eruption, which eruption can last for 1.5 to 5 minutes and can reaches to 106 to 184 feet. While we were waiting an hour in front of the geyser, the people were getting crowded when it closed to 1pm, everyone was waiting eagerly to see its eruption. Until about 1pm plus, we were abled to see Old Faithful erupted and we could every cheering from the crowd, everyone was so happy to see it. Yes, the eruption was the longest and the highest during our visit, it is worth for our waiting.





After viewing of Old Faithful eruption, we just went for a buffet lunch at Old Faithful Restaurant, it costs us USD13++ per person, but we found nothing special from the choices, it was too expensive to us.



After lunch, we just continued with our trip at South West area of Yellowstone NP, we were amazed with breathtaking scenery in Yellowstone NP, and I was really enjoyed the trip.

We spent our night inside of Yellowstone NP, where we booked a room for four at Grant Village Lodge, it is near to West Thumb and we could see the lake with a little walking there. And, I think this is good to have a night stay inside of Yellowstone, this would save our time and travel journey at the second morning, although it would be more expensive for staying inside the Park.

However, SL and I were too tired, so that we went to bed at 8:30 pm without joining CP and SS for their sunset viewing at Yellowstone Lake.