Wyoming’s National Parks

Yellowstone seemed so far away when I was little, and I had never heard of Grand Teton National Park, but both amazed me in so many ways.

Hi travel friends!! This past weekend my brother got married and now I have an amazing new sister-in-law. The wedding was intimate with the circumstances, but was so beautiful! I am so happy I got to be there for their big day. I am finally getting a chance to write about Vince and my trip to Wyoming a few weeks back. It was so nice to finally be able to travel again after months of quarantine. There is so much I could write about this trip, and I will write more in the future, but for this post I wanted to focus on the two national parks we went to :)

Vince’s family lives a bit outside of Yellowstone National Park, so this was our first stop. I had never been to Yellowstone, but I heard so much about it (mainly from school textbooks!). When I was learning about it in school, Wyoming and Yellowstone seemed like a different country it was so foreign to us Wisconsin people. I really only knew about a giant volcano that could go off someday and Old faithful. I didn’t realize how beautiful it was going to be!

We started driving through the park and one of the first things I saw was Yellowstone Lake. And oh my, was it gorgeous! Off in the distance, there are mountains surrounding the lake, but from where we were it was so flat. Being able to see for so far was one of my favorite things about Yellowstone. We continued along the lake and stopped at West Thumb Geyser Basin. This was something I had never heard of, but there were a whole bunch of geysers scattered across the land. As we approached, we could see steam coming up from the ground. And as we got even closer, we were able to see pool-like areas, known as geysers. Each geyser was so unique, it was so interesting to me that no two looked exactly the same. 

While at Yellowstone, of course we had to make a stop to see Old Faithful. Old Faithful goes off approximately every hour and a half. We looked up the timing of it, so that we wouldn’t be waiting around or just miss it. Here is an awesome link from the National Park Service to find out when the next Old Faithful eruption will be! The grounds for Old Faithful include trails to other large geysers, so it is a busy area. However, there is a large parking lot with plenty of parking, so you don’t have to worry about finding a spot. There are also bathrooms, food, and souvenirs in this area so you can get everything you need while seeing Old Faithful! 

Seeing Old Faithful erupt was one of the coolest things I have ever gotten to experience. It is such an amazing thing that the Earth naturally does that, every hour and a half, for the past how many years? I feel a little nerdy, but it was awesome. The fist surge of water going up is incredible! It shoots so high! The total eruption goes for about 4 minutes, but don’t miss that first part because it is truly the best.

Grand Teton National Park was our next stop on our road trip in Wyoming. Vince has always told me this is his favorite place in the world, but to be honest I had never heard of it or even seen a picture of what it looked like before I went. I figured it had to be pretty awesome if he says it's his favorite, but I didn’t know how amazing it was going to be. We left Yellowstone and about 40 minutes later we were in Grand Teton National Park. How crazy two truly spectacular places are so close together!The first glimpse of the mountains had me saying “this can’t be real”.

We spent a few days here in Jackson and really got to enjoy the views. One of my favorite things I was able to do was paddle board. BELOW THE TETONS. We did this at Jenny Lake in the National Park. I highly recommend checking this lake out. We were able to find a private place away from the crowds to have a quiet place to relax and paddle board. The views from Jenny Lake were probably my favorite views of the whole week. 

Another great spot to see the Teton mountain range was from Mormon Row. You may have seen the famous picture of an old farm with the Tetons in the background, this is from here! I was expecting the area to be overcrowded with tourists because of the popularity of this picture. However, there were hardly any people and it was a really quiet place to take in the Tetons. 

Wyoming was truly an amazing place with the beautiful scenery and wildlife. I am so happy it is a place I will be able to go back to many times in the future with Vince’s family living there. I look forward to finding more amazing spots to take in the landscape of Wyoming! 

If you have any special places you have been in Wyoming, please let me know, I would love to check them out next time I am there :)