Vee's Tea Room: Yellowstone/Grand Teton National Park

Yup. Some other national parks this summer for me. My long time friend, Let's Talk Food and Etc., finally visited me at Salt Lake City after talking about it for nearly 8 years!!! Her request for the trip? The famous Yellowstone National Park.

I've been to Yellowstone National Park before with my family. Not my favorite National Park. Maybe the weather was not good and one-fourth of the park was closed. This time? Girl's trip with my friend. The park looks so much better but still not my favorite. Instead, I totally fall in love with Grand Teton! It is such a beautiful park!!! Next time, I would like to camp and climb there!

Day 1 - Driving + Old Faithful at Yellowstone

According to Google map and GPS, driving time from Salt Lake City to West Yellowstone takes about 6 hours. For us, it only took 5!!! Amazing! We were behind our schedule at the beginning (thanks to my friend delayed flight, we both didn't sleep until 2 a.m. the night before) but totally no problem. Still got there around 3 p.m. as planned. So, as planned, we checked in our motel and headed to Old Faithful. I stayed there last time I was there. They did some upgrade on the rooms and I was very satisfied. Highly recommended if you are looking for something economics at West Yellowstone.

The City Center Motel

We were finally entering the park!

First thing you should do when arrived at Old Faithful is to check the eruption time. Old Faithful only erupts every 70 minutes. We arrived there around 4:30 p.m. and the next estimated eruption time was 5:17 p.m. Prefect! Enough time for us to look around especially the Old Faithful Inn, the few log hotels still standing in the United States, and got a good seat for the eruption. Even though we spent quite a bit amount of sun block to prevent our skin damage by the sun, it was worth to sit under the sun early enough to have a good view of the eruption. Because later on, you wouldn't even find a place to stand!!!

Inside of the Old Faithful Inn

This is how many people were waiting for the eruption!

The awesome Old Faithful eruption - a most for Yellowstone

It was about 5:35 when the eruption was done. Prefect time to join our first ranger program - the Geyser Discovery Stroll. I was first so excited about hiking at Yellowstone. I even asked around to see what hiking trails are good. But people told me it is bear active season and we'd better join the ranger program to hike. Especially after the California couples got attack by a bear with cubs just a week before we were there, Iwas like no way to hike by ourselves! Thanks to my friend doing all these homework about the ranger program. Almost all of the ranger program we joined were very informative and interesting! I learn so much about the geysers at the Old Faithful area and it was so much better than just looking at them, which was what I did last time. You know, if you don't know the story behind each geyser, they are just geysers. Not so interesting after you see 4 or 5 of them. I gotta say my favorite geyser is not the Old Faithful but the Riverside Geyser. It is a beautiful geyser located next the Firehole River. We were lucky to see the eruption plus a rainbow over it during our ranger program walk. As for pool, I love the Morning Glory Pool the best. Beautiful color and it really looks like a morning glory!

My favorite geyser, Riverside geyser. Don't know if you can see the rainbow over it.

The beautiful Morning Glory Pool.

After the ranger program walk, it was almost sunset. We just drove back to West Yellowstone and stopped by the Midway Geyser Basin. I love the look of the Firehole River under the sunset. We took several cool sunset pictures there. One of my favorite of the trip is the picture capture a photographer taking pictures on the Grand Prismatic Spring. It's just too bad that the Grand Prismatic Spring is too bad. You couldn't be able to see it's beautiful color unless you are very high up. We called it off a day by rewarding ourselves with some local beers, yummy barbeque and walking around the West Yellowstone town.

Overlook at the Midway Basin Geyser area

Firehole River under the sunset

Grand Prismatic Spring under the sunset with a photographer

Our shadows on the Excelsior Geyser

I forgot what I ordered but my friend order the "Dump Truck"

The ribs were sold out but the brisket was pretty good

Day 2 - Upper Grand Loop of Yellowstone

Day 2 goals included Norris Geyser Basin, Mammoth Hot Spring & the Upper and Lower Falls at Canyon Village. It was an intense day. We have 2 ranger programs to attend, one at the west and one at the east side of the park with only 5.5 hours in between. We did make both of them!!! We even made it to the night program.

First stop, the "Windows Into Yellowstone Walk" at the Norris Geyser Basin at 9 a.m. This walk included the world tallest geyser, the Steamboat Geyser, and the beautiful Pearl and Vixen Geyser. The Steamboat Geyser, unlike the Old Faithful, is an unpredictable geyser. It was last erupted on 2005. Also, there are not camera there but the ranger will know it has erupted because the temperature of the nearby area would go up before the eruption and the water level of the nearby Cistern Spring would drain complete after the eruption. Unfortunately, it wasn't our lucky date to see the Steamboat Geyser erupt. My favorite feature at the Norris Geyser Basin is the Pearl Geyser. It was so beautiful with the pearl like color in the middle. But the ranger said his favorite is the Vixen Geyser as when it erupts, the sun would shine on the water comes up and ilooks like thousand of diamond.

Overlook of the Norris Geyser Basin

The world tallest geyser - Steamboat Geyser

My favorite feature at the area - Pearl Geyser

Vixen Geyser. The ranger said it looks like thousand of diamond drops when it erupts

After the walk, we quickly had the the Mammoth Hot Spring as we had to get to the Canyon Village by 3 p.m. for the ranger program. On the way there, we were amazed by the beautiful view. I've believed it is the Roaring Mountain. We took so many pictures there and don't even want to leave. My friend was quite disappointed by the Mammoth Hot Spring. She thought the beautiful part, which is the picture showed on the brochure, is quite big. But actually it is just a small part of the entire spring. We didn't spend much time there.

The beautiful view on the way, which I've believe is the Roaring Mountain

The small beautiful part of the Mammont Hot Spring

Heading to the Canyon Village. We stopped by the Bleach Cliff, a pretty cool part of the Yellowstone River. I enjoyed very much of the drive to Canyon Village especially at the part of the Mount Washburn. Beautiful overlook of the valley at one side and wild flower on the mountain at the other side.

The Bleach Cliff

Beautiful overlook on Mount Washburn

Colorful wild flowers

We arrived at Canyon Village on time for the "Walking the Edge" ranger program. We walked along the Yellowstone River and able to see both Upper and Lower Falls. They were amazing. Because of the high water level this year, the amount of water passing thought the falls were huge!!! The walk was cool but the talk was quite boring. The main things I got from this ranger are this trail is very close to the tragic bear attack a week ago and the Yellowstone National Park's name is come from the Yellowstone River. We left early at the end and head to our lodging of the night - Lake Yellowstone Hotel. We also stopped by the Mud Volcano area and the Yellowstone River on the way. After dinner, we enjoyed the beautiful sunset view of the lake in front of our hotel with some local beers before heading to the night program to learn about animals at Yellowstone National Park.

The Upper Falls

The Lower Falls

The Mud Volcano


Close contact with a basin at the Mud Volcano area

The Yellowstone River

The Lake Yellowstone Hotel

The lobby of the hotel with live music

Sunset view of the lake

Enjoy a bottle of local beer next to the lake

Day 3 - The Lower Grand Loop of Yellowstone, Grand Teton National Park & Jackson Hole

Day 3 was kind of relax. We've just finished the remaining of Yellowstone and head to Grand Teton. We enjoyed a smoke salmon breakfast at the beautiful hotel restaurant and went to our last ranger program at the park is the "Scenic Lake Overlook" at the West Thumb. First thing we saw at the West Thumb Geyser Basin is the sign stating "Closed due to elk calving". Wow... I've been so scared about any animal attack! Good thing is the ranger program was not canceled. We went on the Lake Overlook Trail which is at the other side. And there is another sign at the trail head, "Bear Frequenting Area". Ar... Ok. I was scared but still keep going but the ranger told us the most danger part of the trail is crossing the road. Ha! This is a present walk has a amazing overlook of Yellowstone Lake with a lot of beautiful wild flowers on the trail.

Yummy smoked salmon for breakfast

According to the range, the elks were chasing tourists the day before

Ar... bears...

The closest contact we had with bears - their foot prints

The brave ranger stopping the traffic for us to cross

Overlook of the lake at the end of the trail

When we were done, the closed West Thumb Geyser Basin was re-opened. I wanted to show my friend the Fishing Cone because I remembered it was pretty cool. But the water level was too high, it was totally covered by the water. Our Yellowstone National Park end with the Lewis Falls. Beautiful!!! I wanted to jump into the river. We exited from the South Entrance and entered the Grand Teton National Park. I fall in love with the park as soon as I saw the mountain.

The completely covered Fishing Cone

My favorite falls at Yellowstone - Lewis Falls

The Grand Teton mountain that I fall in love at first sight

Due to our limit time, we took a boat ride across the Jenny Lake. According to the ranger, Jenny Lake at Grand Teton is like the Old Faithful at Yellowstone. We did a quick hike to the Hidden Falls, Inspiration Point & part of the Cascade Canyon. The reason we hiked the Cascade Canyon not only because the boat driver highly recommended but the people just hiked back from the trail said they saw a moose & bear! I am quite scared of wild animal but after 2 days didn't seeing any, I was quite disappointed. But I guess it's faith, we supposed to see the animals after hiking 30 minutes into the canyon. But we passed 2 groups of people stop saying they saw the animal... I guess they must have left already. We still happy that we did hike there. Beautiful canyon. I would have go further if the last boat ride is not at 7 p.m.

Here we come for the boat ride

The Hidden Falls

I was just amazed by the Jenny Lake view at the Inspiration Point!

Nice hike at the Cascade Canyon

We arrived at Jackson Hole at the evening. Walked around the town a bit and visited the town landmark - Cowboy Bar. We hanged out there until it closed. I ended up didn't sleep until 4 a.m. It was very tough for me driving back home. I almost fall as sleep!!! My trip basically ended at Jackson Hole. Love that town. Gonna go back. My friend was still excited about Great Salt Lake which we stopped by on the way back. Overall, it was a fun girl trip!!!