3-Day Road Trip Through Yellowstone- Old Faithful, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone Lake

I'm Cheryl and my husband Matt is behind the camera and today we are starting our three-day trip to Yellowstone. We can't wait to take you along on some of our classic favorites and snappings. Over the next three days of exploring Yellowstone, we'll climb into canyons, walk to waterfalls, get sprayed by geysers, get out on the water, and spot wildlife. Come join us! Yellowstone is located in the mountains of Wyoming, but a major volcanic eruption long ago blew away some of the mountains, leaving behind green meadows, lakes, and rivers. The wildlife, the remaining volcanic activity, and the flowing rivers all work together to make Yellowstone a wonderfully active place. No two visits to Yellowstone are the same and there's something for everyone here. Hikers and non-hikers, young and old, land lovers and water lovers. In this video, which was filmed in June of 2023, we'll visit the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Old Faithful, and Yellowstone Lake with some other fun spots mixed in between. Nothing is funner than camping in Yellowstone. Yellowstone is really big and it's really important to understand the layout of it. It's one great big loop called the Grand Loop and it can take between four to seven hours to drive around it if you don't stop for anything. And so camping inside the park or getting lodging inside the park will really, I think, help benefit your stay here. We've stayed outside the park before, but we prefer to stay in the park when we can. We're getting ready to begin our first full day here in Yellowstone and one of our little tips that we always like to do when we travel is when we leave our campsite, we pack up for the entire day. So we've got our bug spray, our sunscreen, some water. We're headed to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone today, but one of the cool things about this park is that just driving through it shows off so much of Yellowstone. We see the Madison River with its huge boulders that have tumbled down from the hill above. Several waterfalls are just a roadside stop and a short walk away, such as gorgeous Gibbon Falls, which splays out and cascades eventually into the Madison River. And then there's the bison who are always hanging around. These scraggly animals are still shedding their winter coats. Speaking of looking at for wildlife is it's fun to watch people watching wildlife. We are driving by a herd of bison right now and there are people, no joke, within feet of these bison. You're supposed to stay 25 yards away, but I'm telling you there is always something fun to watch when you drive through Yellowstone. Welcome to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is a magnificent canyon about 1200 feet deep and shows again how active Yellowstone is. The walls here are lava rock that was weakened and turned to red and yellow by the geyser activity below, a process that is still going on. Yellowstone River provided the finishing touches carving this into the canyon we get to enjoy from multiple viewpoints today. It's best to take your time appreciating this unique canyon. One of the great joys of visiting Yellowstone is standing on the edge of this canyon listening to the roaring Yellowstone Falls. We never and I mean never miss a chance to see the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and we think the artist point is the very best spot to see it. But today we're super excited because we're going to go see this Grand Canyon of Yellowstone from a few different lookouts. My very favorite is to go to the brink of the Upper Falls because there's so much power as those waterfalls cascade over the rock. But today we're going to start with going to the Lower Falls because our kids are a little bit older. Matt and I have done this trail before and it's a little more challenging than the brink of the Upper Falls, but the brink of the Lower Falls gives you more of a canyon view and it's so beautiful that we're going to see how our kids do to count the switchbacks, right? One so far. Okay, I don't know how many there are. We're going to find out as we go back to the top. Two switchbacks so far. Two. And we're already out of breath. Yes. Come on. Five. Molly. Molly. Number eight. No, wait. What are we? Number nine. Okay, how many switchbacks total? Ten. Ten. So if you go down to the brink of the Lower Falls, you need to remember you're going to have to come up. How was it? Spectacular. Yeah. But we counted the switchbacks on the way up and there were ten. Ten switchbacks. So you go there and it's pretty tough to come up, but beautiful. Just upstream is another powerful waterfall called the Upper Falls. One of the coolest things about Yellowstone is that there are waterfalls everywhere. I can't think of anywhere else, maybe besides Glacier, that you can see so many waterfalls with such little effort. And today we're at our fourth waterfall. We've hardly done any walking, but because the Upper Falls is the top, my all-time number one place to see a waterfall, I think in any national park. There's just so much water flowing over. You're so close to the brink. I love it. Right next to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is just the canyon area. There's a few restaurants, the newest lodge in the park, a gift shop, a grocery store. There's even a booth that you can rent, bear spray, and a service station, which we're actually using today. Our car's been having some trouble with the coolant, and so Matt is taking it over there to be looked at, and I have got the kids. We're on a little secret mission. Our secret mission is to find some good food in Yellowstone. If you were to ever look at Google reviews to see about food in the Yellowstone, and by the way, there's tons of food at all the stations here, but it never gets a good rating. Three out of five, consistent. People hate the food in Yellowstone, but I don't believe it's all bad. So today we're at Canyon that has the most restaurants. I'm gonna let the kids pick what they want, and maybe we'll find something good to eat. Okay, so we're in the Canyon eatery right now, and they actually have a bunch of different options in here. This is called Slow Food Fast. People are going through like a cafeteria line here. There's grab-and-go stuff. There are a lot of options right here in the Canyon eatery. So we ended up doing the Slow Food Fast, a little cafeteria lunch, and we got a half chicken. I shared it with my girl here, and beans and mac and cheese, and I thought they were good. Now, you, Cheryl, got a salmon. I said it was okay, right? Yeah. And the kids all like their meals, hot dog, chicken, the fish. I mean, I think this Canyon eatery is just fine. No complaints. The architecture here at Canyon Village is a little different, and if you're wondering why it looks a little different from the rest of the park, it's because it was built during a time called Mission 66. After World War II, armed with a good economy and the automobile, Americans started discovering their own country flocking to the national parks. So in the 1950s, the Mission 66 program was created to get the parks ready for the onslaught of visitors. New hotels, parking lots, campgrounds, and trails were constructed for the modern tourist. What was modern then is now retro, which explains why you'll get a sudden desire to do the twist when you walk into a cafeteria at Canyon Village. So we're on a mission to find good food in Yellowstone, and we're just getting ready to eat, and we actually ran into one of our favorite subscribers, Old Ranger, who has been with us forever. I can't believe we get to meet him, but he says that we're actually way off. He says he's had some really good meals in Yellowstone, so we thought, well, we have an experienced foodie here, or at least he's tried some of the food. He could tell us where to go eat. Well, there's Fast Food Dunslow right here on the Falls Cafe Run, and the Quarter Chicken and the Gourmet Salmon is out of this world, and then there's the Grill, the Fountain and Grill, just across the way right next to the grocery store. They close kind of early. They're locking the door and shutting the grill off at 6 p.m. The pulled pork sandwiches, the burgers, the little brother had the bison and elk burger. It was very good, but your point is well taken. You have to work to find good food here. The Old Ranger says go west, young traveler. Okay, I'm putting coolant in the engine here again. Our vehicle situation has been a little stressful on this trip. We pulled our camper trailer from Utah, but broke down in Pocatello, Idaho on the way. We thought all was fine, and on our first night, we parked the trailer at campground and then went to West Yellowstone to see the play at the wonderful Plain Mill Theater. This is something we do every year because we love it so much. The cast will seat you and serve you great refreshments like Dole Whips and Hot Fudge Sundaes at intermission. We met McCade from the cast last year, and he actually remembered us this year. After the play, we noticed more fluid under our car, so we bought five bottles of coolant from the gas station to fill up every time we stop. We have to stop at every stop and check the coolant. We're finishing out our day by driving through Hayden Valley to Lake Village, where we find the most special of Yellowstone surprises. How do you see? Okay, we see a black bear. He's a little guy, and he's kind of blonde actually. He has a dark face though, and then a tan snout. Really cute, really cute bear out there in the trees. Everybody's gathering around here. One of our favorite things to do is to just get a little treat midday. A lot of times we like to get ice cream cones, but our the store here at the lake closed at five, and we're here just a little bit after, so we found something else awesome. Huckleberry licorice. In Montana, huckleberries are the thing, and so whenever you're in Montana, you got to try something huckleberry. Today we are super excited to see geysers and kayak on Yellowstone Lake, but first we're at Fountain Paint Pots. It has great variety with mud pots, hot springs, and a geyser that never stops erupting. Okay, the next thing to do is to visit Lower Geyser Basin. So Lower Geyser Basin is really cool in Yellowstone because you can see all four types of geothermal activity here, or geyser activity. So there's steam vents, there's mud pots, there's gorgeous blue hot springs, and then there's geysers. And the cool thing about this is you're guaranteed to see a geyser go off. You know why? Because this is called Clepsydra Geyser, and it never stops erupting. It started in 1959 during that earthquake, that Yellowstone earthquake of 1959, and it has not stopped erupting since, which is insane. Very fun, and a really, really cool scenic place to walk around. Don't forget about Lower Geyser Basin. Plus, it's an easy boardwalk, not too much with energy required. Of course, the most famous geyser in the park is Old Faithful. There are many places to watch Old Faithful erupt, and today we're going to try a new one. Okay, so we're now in the Old Faithful Lodge, not to be confused with the Old Faithful Inn, which is a different and larger building. This one's kind of cool, though, because you can watch Old Faithful go off while you're eating here, or just hanging out in the lobby here. So there is a little snack shop or bakery right there. It's closed right now because it closes at 12 30. Behind me, a bunch of people are sitting here waiting for Old Faithful to erupt. And then you can see the cafeteria behind me here with a lot of food options. We all just ate at the cafeteria. Everybody liked their food. It's nothing to write home about necessarily, but I got ribs and I loved them. My wife got a noodle bowl with shrimp. She said it was fine, overpriced, but the food was fine. And that's what you're going to get in Yellowstone, overpriced food. And so there's some options here that you can eat and watch Old Faithful go off, kind of fun. They were messing with us a little bit. Yeah, still always cool. It was 11 minutes over-scheduled, overdue. Our little experiment, I think, was a huge success. The only thing I missed was I kind of like the sound of Old Faithful erupting and I couldn't hear the sound. So next, we have two geysers we're going to try to experience over the next two hours. One is called the Thumper, and I'll tell you more about that later. And the other is Castle. There's actually five geysers that are predictable at the Old Faithful geyser basin, and we're going to try to see a couple more besides Old Faithful. Oh man, we got lucky while we were walking. Oh baby, it's spraying us. Okay, we're all going back in. Okay, so there's essentially four types of geysers. There's like the Old Faithful kind of geysers that erupt. There's fumaroles, which are just steam coming out of the ground. Mud pots that look like just boiling mud. And then there's springs that are the pretty poles. They're like the blue and orange colors. But when we were here this winter, we were looking at a geyser and we could hear this thudding sound. They're called Thumpers, and what happens is you'll see ripples in the water and you'll hear some thumping and feel it shake the ground. So this one right here is supposed to go off every 30 minutes, and we're going to see what happens. All right, that is Castle geyser going off down there. That is our fourth geyser today that we got to see erupt. Nature let you down? I feel like I was on the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown episode where the Great Pumpkin never showed up. But I have heard a Thumper before. This winter we saw a geyser that thumped and it was cool. All right, we stumbled into another one. This is like our fifth one today. This Upper Geyser Basin is going crazy today. The Old Faithful Inn is the most impressive structure in all of Yellowstone. It was built in 1903 over the course of one winter, a remarkable feat considering what winters are like in Yellowstone. Walking inside will cause your neck to strain as you look upwards into the wide open lobby ceiling. Okay, I'm curious what you think about this compared to the Glacier National Park Lodges. Nothing compares to the Glacier National Park Lodges. They're just a work of art. They're beautiful. Now this is cool because it's the world's largest cabin. And when I was a child, I was completely fascinated with this building. I couldn't get enough of the wood pillars and the knobby wood. It's really fun to be in here and a fun excitement. You can tell people are excited to be in this cool old structure and outside I think is even cooler. A family tradition that my family has had since I was a kid is getting an ice cream cone at the Old Faithful Inn. We love to eat our ice cream and watch the geysers go. Up next is something new that I've been dying to do ever since I learned about it. I get to go kayak on Yellowstone Lake. Yellowstone Lake is huge and super cold. It's only 41 degrees, but we are going to gear up. We're going to paddle our kayaks over and we're going to see some geysers on the lake. Can't wait. Our guide says only about three kayaks tip over a year, but last year when Matt and I were at Glacier, we were on a boat tour and we actually got bear spray. They said that once a year someone accidentally discharges their bear spray and we were on that boat. All right, so they're actually turning around right now because of the thunder and so they're being safe here. We don't really know if she's going to get to go or not. All right, we sat around and waited here for like, no joke, 40 minutes while they explained the rules and how to use a paddle and every last thing. They finally got out on the water. We're seriously standing here on the pier. They went about not even 100 yards and had to turn around because they saw thunder, which is crazy, but well last year when I came and did a horseback ride, they kind of did the same thing to me. They spent 30 minutes just reading me a laundry list of rules before the ride, so I know they're trying to be safe and I'm sure, you know, any little blemish on their record is going to affect their ability to operate within the National Park. I get all that, but something to know if you're going to come and do some activities inside Yellowstone National Park. My kayak ride was a bit of a disappointment, but this is a bit of a fun surprise. We decided to come get some food at the Grant Village Lake House and to our surprise, this is the cheapest restaurant we've been at. Our tacos are just five dollars. We've got an amazing view of the lake and something that kind of surprised me is that normally these restaurants have like burgers, chicken fingers, hot dogs, but here all you can get is tacos and that's a really fun surprise. Tacos and nachos, so what a great way to end the day. I have found my happy place. Every morning on this trip, I have woken up and walked here to this Madison Valley and it just is so peaceful. It's what Yellowstone is all about and I love it, but there's so much of Yellowstone that I'd love to share with you. I travel here every year and we have a whole playlist of all the things we see and do in Yellowstone. Check it out. If you like this video, you'll love our four-day trip to Yellowstone in the winter. Thanks for watching.