Happy 150th birthday to America’s first national park, Yellowstone National Park! As the plaque on the Roosevelt Arch above says, “For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People.” Check out some of my previous posts about Yellowstone by clicking here and here. There are more blog posts about Yellowstone on here that you can find by just searching my blog by Yellowstone if you’re looking for more! Cheers to 150 years to this first and amazing national park!
Merriam-Webster defines the word calendar as “a system for fixing the beginning, length, and divisions of the civil year and arranging days and longer divisions of time (such as weeks and months) in a definite order”. It sounds so clinical and boring. A calendar represents more than that. If we look at the calendar from last year, it’s filled with more than numbers and systems. It’s filled with memories, goals, adventures, and events. As we enter this new year, the 2022 calendar highlights the 150th anniversary of our first national park, Yellowstone National Park. My calendar also features a milestone birthday on it (although I keep telling everyone that I’m celebrating 36 again 🙂 ) and also shows the 1st anniversary of my children’s book. It’s exciting to look ahead at the upcoming days, weeks, and months. A new calendar makes way for new memories, goals, adventures, and events. Cheers to this calendar and what will come for us all. Happy New Calendar!
Happy 149th birthday to America’s first national park, Yellowstone National Park! Check out some of my previous posts about Yellowstone by clicking here and here. There are more blog posts about Yellowstone on here that you can find by just searching my blog by Yellowstone if you’re looking for more! Cheers to 149 years to this first and amazing national park!
Happy 148th birthday to America’s first national park, Yellowstone National Park! “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.” – Saint Augustine Check out some of my previous posts about Yellowstone by clicking here and here. There are more blog posts about Yellowstone on here that you can find by just searching my blog by Yellowstone if you’re itching to read more! To celebrate, take a minute and mark a visit to this amazing national park on your calendars. Check it off your bucket lists as it is a must vacation in your life! Cheers to 148 years!
On this February day, I sit distracted by thinking about bison jams. Yes, I said bison jams. Last summer, we visited Yellowstone National Park and experienced (more than once) bison jams. If you ever visit this national park (while I highly recommend), you are bound to encounter this unique situation along on the park roads. It is literally what the name suggests – a bison (or many) strolling along the road causing traffic to pause or stop for some time. These large animals will walk in front of your car, next to the car, or behind your car. They don’t have watches, so do not care about their pace or time of the day. They might play follow the leader or might butt heads. They might pause for a bite to eat next the road. They might even sit down for a nap. Bison are amazing creatures. One of my favorites! American male bison weigh around 2,000 pounds! Also, did you know that these huge mammals can run up to 35 mph? I wrote a previous blog about bison last year that you can read here if you’re interested in more bison information. As I sit at my computer here, I keep picturing those bison jams from last summer. It’s a really amazing experience to have such a mammoth creature stroll by your car. You can hear them breathe and snort. Our children could not believe these animals surrounded all these cars and just kept on their hike down the road. I wonder what these animals think seeing all these cars with people inside holding some rectangle gadgets by the windows. I wonder if the bison like the paved roads or miss the entire area being unpaved. I wonder what bison dream about. Back from my wonderings and dreams, go check out these unique visitor experiences in Yellowstone National Park. Trust me, it will stick with you beyond the moment.
One of the highlights from our trip happened by surprise. In Yellowstone National Park, we caught Castle Geyser erupting while literally standing next to it. Most people think about Old Faithful when they picture Yellowstone National Park. However, Yellowstone has 500 amazing geysers and some 10,000 thermal features to check out! Castle Geyser has the largest cone geyser and may be the oldest geyser in that area. It’s named after looking like an old castle. While the geyser’s eruption pattern has changed over time, it now goes off about every 12-14 hours unless it has minor eruptions which throw off the pattern at times. The water eruptions from this castle shoot hot water up to 100 feet into the air for about 20 minutes! And then it blows some hot, noisy steam for around 30-40 minutes. The entire eruption can last about an hour. We caught this eruption one day in July while visiting there. Our family loved it! Definitely a highlight from the trip! Enjoy some photos and a video of this really cool geyser!
When you think about our national parks, what do you think about? Many people will say the wildlife. Our national parks contain some amazing animals – on land, in the water, or even in our skies! One of these amazing animals really awed me the first time seeing them – bison! When you think about the American West, you can’t help but think about the American bison. I will never forget driving into Yellowstone National Park and seeing my first herd of bison there. They are such large, beautiful creatures. American male bison weigh around 2,000 pounds! Also, did you know that these huge mammals can run up to 35 mph? It’s also pretty cool to think that these bison have lived in Yellowstone continuously since prehistoric times. Millions used to roam North America along all parts of it. So, are they called bison or buffalo? Americans often refer to these creatures as buffalo. Technically, they are bison. Bison fall into the same scientific family group as the Asian water buffalo and the African cape buffalo. Back when European explorers came to America and saw the bison and thought that they looked similar to the Old World buffalo, so started calling them buffalo. Yet, technically they are bison here in America. Buffalo in Africa and Asia do not have a large hump by their shoulders that the bison have here. The American bison have endured many challenges over the years. In particular, hunting and poaching dwindled their numbers down to about two dozen left. Over many years, national park employees worked hard to bring the bison numbers back up in Yellowstone and avoid extinction. These great animals still face challenges today, but the goals still exist to protect and best manage these mammals. In 2016, bison were declared our national mammal because they are a symbol of wild America, an important part of our heritage, and a key player in an ecosystem that’s much larger than a national park. During your next trip to Yellowstone National Park, remember that bison are wild animals. According to the NPS, bison have injured more people in Yellowstone than any other animal there. Stay at least 25 yards away from bison (if not more) as these great creatures can be unpredictable and run fast! I can’t wait to see this great creature again out in the wild and roaming through the valleys of Yellowstone National Park!
Cheers to Yellowstone National Park, America’s first national park, celebrating 147 years of national park designation! Enjoy a few photos below from our trips to this amazing national park! “There can be nothing in the world more beautiful than the Yosemite, the groves of the giant sequoias and redwoods, the Canyon of the Colorado, the Canyon of the Yellowstone, the Three Tetons; and our people should see to it that they are preserved for their children and their children’s children forever, with their majestic beauty all unmarred.” ~ President Theodore Roosevelt
First National Park Read More »
Below please find a piece that I wrote in April of 2005 about our first trip to Yellowstone National Park. I decided to share it in honor of Yellowstone’s birthday coming up on Friday. (Please excuse any of the outdated cost information found in here as the piece is about 14 years old.) Enjoy! —————————– Unemployment equals time minus money. In 2002, my then-boyfriend (now husband) and I faced a summer calendar randomly decorated with a handful of interviews, but mostly the dark black numerals stared back at us yelling out our available time. One night at dinner early in the summer, Steve said, “Let’s do it. Let’s drive out to Yellowstone and go camping. What else do we have to do?” A smirk of surprise hopped on my face and I replied, “Can we afford it? There’s gas, food, camping fees, and park fees.” “When else in our lives will we be able to take off for a couple of weeks? Besides that, we have to pay for food and gas even if we stay in town.” A few weeks later, we loaded up our Nissan Maxima with the essential camping gear, cooler of food, and maps in hand. After several days of driving and making a few fun stops, we rolled into Yellowstone National Park. I had always heard about this park – the buffalo roaming all over; the bears surprising visitors randomly; the old times when rich people took the train and stayed in lodges; Old Faithful going off every 90 minutes; kids pointing at herds of elk; and the ability to gaze at millions of stars that ignite the nights. From a distance, you could see the grand stone building standing high above all else in the area. The Roosevelt Arch seemed to wave us towards the park as we continued to drive closer. The Roosevelt Arch debuted as the first major entrance for Yellowstone at the north side. Before 1903, trains would bring visitors to Cinnabar, Montana, located a few miles northwest of Gardiner, Montana (just outside the northwest entrance of Yellowstone. People would climb onto horse-drawn coaches in Cinnabar and then ride to enter the park. In 1903, the railway finally came to Gardiner, and people entered through an enormous stone archway. Robert Reamer, a famous architect in Yellowstone, designed the immense stone arch for coaches to travel through on the way into the park. At the time of arch’s construction, President Theodore Roosevelt visited the park. He consequently placed the cornerstone for the arch, which then took his name. “For the benefit and enjoyment of the people” inscribed at the top of the Roosevelt Arch, which comes from the Organic Act of 1872, the enabling legislation for Yellowstone National Park. After driving under the famous Arch, we pulled the Nissan up to the tollbooth-like station. A ranger donned in their usual Stetson hat and uniform greeted us hello and gave us our maps. Steve pressed lightly on the gas pedal and we crept further into Yellowstone National Park. Around the next bend, a herd of about 50 elk strolled across the two-lane road. We paused in delight to witness such wildlife. The male antlers towered several feet in the air. The female elk guarded their young elk closely. America created Yellowstone National Park, our first national park, in 1872. In 1873, 500 people visited America’s first national park. By 1888, Yellowstone hit a record number of 6,000 visitors. In 2004, 2,900,971 people journeyed to Wyoming to visit this park. As we traveled through this park, I visualized who traveled here over 100 years ago and who traveled to this amazing this amazing area over the last century. Were these people all rich and loved to travel? Did any of them camp like us? How did they get around the park before the invention of automobiles? Questions swarmed my heard of the past while balancing my eyesight on the breathtaking views. I tried to picture myself here if I visited the park in the late 1800’s. Would I be a hunter, trapper, or poacher as those who comprised the visitation demographics during that era? When Yellowstone first opened its doors, people could hunt within the national park. Today, rangers will arrest people for hunting in efforts to help preserve animal life. The other types of visitors back then included the wealthy train visitors. Few people could afford the $116.75 train ticket from Omaha, Nebraska to Corinna, Montana in 1873. Local residents of nearby towns also made random visits to the area using their own wagons, horses, carriages, or pack animals. Other visitors included military officers from not only the United States military, but also from European countries’ military forces. I imagined riding a wagon or escorting my military husband back then. I do know that Yellowstone really struggled with a target audience and sustaining visitation rates over the early years. Visitation numbers fluctuated throughout this time. As Steve and I continued to drive through Yellowstone, I noticed the other cars originated from all states. We must have seen at least 30 states. Their automobile license plates looked as diverse as this landscape around us. I had always envisioned the early visitors only stayed at the lodges. However, in 1905, visitors split down the middle between camping and lodging. Nearly half of the visitors at this time camped during their Yellowstone visit. Over 80 years ago, Yellowstone allowed automobiles (like our little Nissan) to enter the park in 1915. With the usage of cars, an increase of visitation occurred that created another need in the park – lodging for all these new visitors. Democracy came to Yellowstone in 1926 with the creation of the Lake Lodge. Prior to this time, visitors only had the options of the luxurious Lake Hotel or rustic tent camps. Lake Lodge offered guests intermediate style of lodging. In order for the park to promote accommodations and also reach out to all classes, they created three-tiered system of accommodation including:
First Visit to Yellowstone Read More »
