After I ate breakfast and all, We were ready to go. Here was THE plan for this day.

1. Turn left at the Madison junction and stop at the Gibbon falls Overlook
2.  Do the 2 Norris Canyon Trails, 1. Porcelain loop trail, 0.8 miles 2. Back bend loop trail, 1.5 miles
3. See the Lower falls and Upper Falls.
4. Go to Hayden Valley at around 3-4 to see animals

So, we went straight as usual, we took an unfamiliar left at the junction, and headed toward Gibbon Falls. On the way there I looked more carefully at the right, because this was unknown territory, and there may have been animals that we haven’t seen yet. But the car was going too fast and I couldn’t spot anything. Then just when I was about to give up, we reached, the Gibbon Falls river. NOT FALLS.

There was this trail that led down to the river, and on the way there, there was a sign that said BEWARE OF BEARS, enter at your own risk. And that’s precisely what we did, enter at our own risk. And we reached the river, in no time at all. The water was moving really fast, and my mom thought that there would be fish in the water. But there wasn’t. I touched the water and it was freezing cold. It was even colder than the water I touch when I go to the beach!

After my dad took a few pics, we were back in the car, heading toward Gibbon Falls. At Gibbon Falls there was a lot of crowd, I wasn’t surprised because the first day also had a lot of crowd. We walked on the road until we reached the Lower Point Overlook, where we got a perfect view of the falls, then the Higher Point Overlook, where we didn’t get a good view. But, at least at the Lower Overlook, the Waterfall looked amazing!

The next stop of the day was the Norris Canyon Geyser Basin, which contains the highest erupting active geyser, The Steamboat Geyser! I was looking forward to seeing that Geyser, other geysers in the area and the Hot Springs in the area. At the Norris parking lot there was a sign and like the river sign it said, PARK AT YOUR OWN RISK. When the Steamboat Geyser erupts it could unleash rocks and minerals that could harm your car. And once again we did it with our own risk.

Before we would start hiking I wanted to check out this small visitor center. There a Park Ranger was saying that the last major eruption of the Steamboat geyser was just 7 days ago! Imagine, if we were there on the 31 of May, we would have seen something that would only happen every 4 days-50 years!!! We started with hiking the Porcelain Loop Trail. It included various geysers and one spring (The Porcelain One). My favorite geyser on this hike was the one that was chugging like a Steam Engine. My mom even mistook that geyser as the Steamboat Geyser! All the other ones were similar and weren’t too impressive.

Then we had finished the Porcelain trail and had started on the Back Bend loop trail, first we weren’t seeing any geysers, we were seeing trees on the right and left side of us. But soon enough the Geyser area came about again, and once more we saw a bunch of similar springs and geysers.

After a while we reached the Cistern Spring. Fun Fact about the Spring: Whenever the Steamboat geyser explodes, the Cistern spring empties out completely. Just after the Spring, I saw the Steamboat geyser! When I saw it there was only smoke rising up from a hole in the ground, so I couldn’t imagine what it would look like when it explodes. Since it erupts any time from 4 days – 50 years, we weren’t planning to wait, like we did for the Grand Geyser yesterday. So we just continued with the trail.

That was it for the Norris Canyon Basin area! It was around 1 pm, and we all were hungry. Since there was not tables or benches in the area, we decided to head to the Canyon Visitor Center Area to eat lunch. When we reached and found a table in the area my mom pulled out our lunch, Sandwiches. I finished eating the Sandwich and my dad told me I could get Ice Cream from the General store! There was no Mint Chip Ice Cream, so I picked my 2nd favorite flavor, Rocky Road. And it tasted sooooo good. Even my mom got an Ice Cream. Its flavor was Mountain Berry.

I licked down the Ice Cream, and was ready to do the Lower Falls hike. The hike wasn’t far from the visitor center, and we reached pretty quick. And according to the main sign, the hike was a mile long, downhill. First it went Downhill like this ———-> and then it went downhill like <————-. And that was basically the whole hike. It was steep, and you did have to watch you’re step, but it was all worth it when you would see the final result.

We were so close to the falls, and when you see the water fall down, it’s hard to even know how many gallons of water are going down every second. If that isn’t cool enough, there was a full rainbow curving from one end to the river to another. IT WAS AMAZING, because I have never seen anything like it before. This was one of the highlights of the trip.

When we had, had enough of the falls (Which was a long time) we headed back up to the parking lot, where the Upper Falls Trail Head would be. This time, it was going uphill instead of downhill. because of this it was a little harder to climb. But eventually we all could do it. (Even if we stopped a Trillion times for my mom to catch her breath.)

The Upper Falls Trail went through the forest, and once again we saw the sign that said BEWARE OF BEAR. Then as we hiked uphill, there was this screeching noise. And my mom freaked out because she thought it was a Bear rubbing his/her back against the base of a tree. Turns out it was only a tree that was about to fall, but was denied by another closer tree. When the wind comes it scraped against the other tree and makes that noise “SCREEEEECH.” Shortly, after the “Bear” encounter we reached another parking lot. There was one problem though, there was one hike that went straight and another that was a little bit in the distance on the left. Since nobody was going on the one straight ahead we decided to do the one on the left.

There was no sign saying that this was the Upper Falls Lookout point, but there was a lot of crowd heading down the trail. So we assumed that the Falls must have been where the people were heading. The Upper Falls were there, and it was similar to the Lower Falls. There was a full rainbow and there was a lot of water going down. Then we hiked back through the woods, and toward the parking lot, where my dad parked the car.

It was around 3 when we reached the car, and that was around the time we would see animals. But before we would head to Hayden Valley, we had to see another famous landmark in Yellowstone, we had to see the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone! To see the Grand Canyon, you had to go to Inspiration Point. It was only a short drive away, so we reached there in no time. The view was spectacular! You could see how the river had carved the Canyon over the years. And we were also at such a high altitude!

While we were driving toward the Valley, I saw a sign saying Hayden Valley, so we all knew that we had reached. As we drove through there were hills and plenty of acres of free, roaming grasslands on either side. There were only Bison on the land, even though the article said that we would see numerous animals in this region. There was a lake up ahead, and my dad stopped to see, if there was any living creature on the lake. There was! And it was a new animal! The Trumpeter Swan! There were 2 Trumpeter swans and numerous Swan babies in the Lake. It was easy to notice them because they are almost fully white.

After the joy of seeing a new animal, we were eager to see more. But sadly, there was nothing except Bison roaming the lands when we finished the drive through Hayden Valley. Luckily we would get one more chance to see animals this day because we were going back to West Yellowstone. And the fastest way was to go the same way we came. Even with our second chance, we couldn’t see anything except Bison, until the end of the Valley. At the end of the Valley we saw one lonely elk that had big and long antlers. It was so close up that I got a great view and picture of it!

During the ride back to the hotel, I checked the right (Like always) and my mom checked the left. When we were close to Norris, my mom spotted a female Elk on the left, and took a picture of it. The next 45 minutes of the ride, we didn’t see anything. And that was the end of day #3, One of the most thrilling day of the trip!

 

 

This was the 2nd day for the first trip in 1 1/2 years. I woke up early, around 6:30, at breakfast at the hotel. And then was ready to head back to Yellowstone National Park. The plan for this day was to first see the lower Geyser basin, which has numerous geysers, then from there we would see the nearby midway geyser basin, which has the biggest spring in the world. The from there we would see, Old Faithful the legendary geyser and other geysers around it.

My dad drove turned right from the Madison junction, heading toward the lower geyser basin. Just according to plan. But then, at some point we saw that many people had stopped to take the Low Flats drive for some reason. My dad thought there would be animals there, so we did the drive. Halfway through the short drive I spotted a huge herd of Bison on the right. This time there was babies, too. There was a river there, and I got to see the Bison drinking from it. As we went closer to the river to get a better look at the Bisons, we noticed that there was a small geyser in the river! Although the drive was not part of the plan, it was worth doing.

Then, just a few minutes later we reached the lower geyser basin. As I went to see the first geyser I noticed that the steam coming from the geyser smelled like rotten egg. It was disgusting, because I don’t like eating or smelling egg. But it wasn’t too severe, so I could handle it. It was a 0.5 mile round trail hike and there were a few geysers, that were all similar and one hot spring that had water the color of turquoise! This lower geyser basin, was not even as close as impressive to the one we were gonna see next.

At the beginning of the midway geyser basin hike, there was a bridge that crosses a fast flowing river. And on he left, hot water from the biggest spring in the world was coming down and mixing with the cold water! After we all climbed up the steps I was lost in a cloud of fog. You see, since it was the biggest spring in the world, it also releases a lot of steam. Luckily, after a few seconds the fog was gone and I could see again. The spring was REALLY wide, REALLY DEEP and it held a LOT OF WATER, and according to a nearby sign, the biggest spring was called the Excelsior spring.

If the Excelsior spring wasn’t enough the one we were going to see next must be enough. The Grand Prismatic Spring. From far away the steam rising from the spring, is a shade of blue and red. It looks AMAZING AND COOL AT THE SAME TIME. As we got closer I noticed that the ground close to the spring were every color you could think of. And the Spring itself was no less awesome, than the Excelsior one. The water was turquoise and it still had steam, the color of red and blue. My dad said he hasn’t seen anything like the Grand Prismatic Spring in a long time! So after taking a few pictures of the Spring we headed back to the car.

Finally, just before lunch we headed to our final planned destination. The Old Faithful area, Which includes the Old Faithful geyser that erupts every hour and a half. At the Old Faithful area, there was a lot of crowd, in which I thought was for the geyser. Later, I found out it wasn’t only for the Old Faithful Geyser, it was also for the other geysers in the area, such as Grand and Castle.

There was this place up ahead in which people were gathering to watch the geyser explode. We were about to head toward the area, until I saw a sign. It showed the predictions of when each geyser may explode. for Old faithful it said 11:45 AM +/- 10 mins. It was 11:42 AM at the time, so we wouldn’t have to wait too long. When we were at the area, I couldn’t see anything in the front because a bunch of people were all gathered there. But my Mom told me, since I was a kid that I could go in the front. So I did that and had a great view of the geyser. And luckily just after a few minutes the geyser exploded and I got to take a 5 star video. The waters maximum height, while exploding, was 100 ft!

After we all ate lunch we took the 1.2 mile round trip around the Old Faithful area. The first stop was the Castle Geyser. That Geyser would explode, at predicted time 2:15 +/- 45 mins. That time was far away, since it was 12:40. We would come back to the geyser, around 1:30 to see it explode. The next stop turned out to be the last stop for us, the Grand Geyser. And the prediction was 1:30 +/- 45 mins. Since there was a lot of crowd and we didn’t have anything else planned for that day, we decided to wait. A park ranger said it was worth the wait because the water height goes up to 200 feet high! That’s double the height of Old Faithful!

Spoiler alert. We waited for an hour and a half and the Grand Geyser didn’t explode. But you know what exploded? THE CASTLE GEYSER. Luckily, it was pretty close from where we were waiting. So I got to see the Castle geyser explode. If we had just waited there, we would have had a better view of it. But at least we saw the Old Faithful one explode! Also, while we were waiting for grand to explode, my dad spotted a squirrel like creature hiding behind the rocks. It was orange, yellow and had a little bit of white. Later, I found out it was a Yellow Bellied Marmot. So YEA NEW ANIMAL!

Since it was only 2:15, we headed back to the car and headed toward West Thumb. We headed there because my dad wanted coffee. At West Thumb though, there were no places that you would get coffee, so we kept heading toward the east toward Lake Village. Just after we left West Thumb, My dad spotted 3 Male elks on the right. I knew they were male because they had long and thick antlers. This was the first time we had seen Elk in the park.

When we reached Lake Village, we found out that there was nothing there except a huge hotel. But we still had a lot of time, so my dad drove to the Fisher mans bridge. Which according to the map states that you may see Grizzlies. We did not. But since there was a general store nearby that had an ice cream which only costed 99 cents. And it tasted good. After I finished the Mint chip ice cream it was around five so we started to head back to West Yellowstone hotel.

During the drive back, we didn’t see any animals. So when we reached 2 hours later, we had dinner at this Chinese place, and that basically ended the 2nd day of the trip.

 

June 6, 6:37 AM.

My dad woke me up BECAUSE WE WERE GOING ON A TRIP FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 1 1/2 years! This time, this trip would be to Yellowstone National Park, Also known as the first National Park in the U.S. I was pretty excited to see  the numerous animals and Geysers there, but I was mainly excited to get to go somewhere in such a long time!

First we went to the Airport and took 2 flights to reach the Jackson Hole Airport. The first flight stopped at Los Angeles and the next flight went to Jackson hole. There, we got a rental car, the Hyundai Elantra. And started to head toward West Yellowstone/The White Buffalo Hotel.

As my dad was driving, I was looking out my window and saw, what I had never seen in California. The car and the main road were surrounded by a million acres of greenery on all sides. And further in the distance there were these really tall mountains. At the top of these mountains I saw this white stuff, which my dad says is snow!

Since none of us had, had a proper meal that day my dad decided to stop at this Dornans Pizza place to eat dinner. (Even though it was only 5 PM and we usually never eat dinner that early.) After I chomped down the pizza, I hopped back in the car, ready for a road trip through the wilderness.

After about 20 minutes we reached the Grand Teton and Yellowstone parks toll booth. My parents had to pay for both because when you enter Grand Teton, you can only come out via one of the Yellowstone entrances. I looked on the right to see if I could spot any animals and my mom looked on the left. Then just after a few minutes I spotted some big hairy brown things roaming around the grasslands. My dad saw it too, so he stopped the car. I wondered what animal it was, so I checked the Animals book I had gotten from the airport, and according to the book we had seen our first Bison/Buffalo’s at the park!

Immediately, we stopped again. This time it wasn’t for Bison. This time my dad had spotted 3 deer, or to be more specific 3 Mule Deer! They were closer to the road than the Bison, so I could see what they were doing (Eating Grass). Also Fun fact:  A single Mule Deer can run up to 60 mph, they are only 2nd to the Cheetah worldwide!

So far the trip was a huge success. Just around 15-20 minutes in we had seen 2 species of Animals in Grand Teton. But then, we weren’t able to spot anything for a long period of time, because the left and right sides were covered by Thousands of trees. We headed out through this clearing and saw that a lot of people had stopped and were looking in to the forest with their binoculars. Turns out that someone saw a Mother bear and 4 cubs in the morning, so people were waiting for them to come out again. We didn’t have time to wait, since it was getting late. BUT, we just saw a bear a few minutes later without even having to wait!

A pretty big Grizzly bear was on our right side of the road. Suddenly the bear was crossing the road quickly. It was only a few feet away from another car on the other side, so I thought it would attack it. It didn’t. Then it crossed the road and disappeared into the woods. NOW THAT WAS AWESOME!

I was expecting to see a bunch more animals on the drive back to the hotel, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case. As we entered Yellowstone, there were only thick forests, Long Grasslands and Marshy Areas. And when we were close to the Madison Junction, we saw many small Geysers, with steam coming from them. It was getting dark and hard to see, but with luck, after the Madison Junction I saw something brown on a small hill. It was a blur of a brown thing since the car was moving fast. So my dad turned the car around and it turned out I had seen a Female Moose. Which is rare because there were only 100 Moose in Yellowstone.

After a while we reached the town of West Yellowstone. That ended the first day, in which I have to say later, It was the best day!

 

When I was sleeping Santa Claus used magical powers and sneaked around the whole house and NOBODY, not even my mom who is always awake heard him.

1 day before

Before the night when Santa would come to deliver gifts I kept two paper Christmas trees on a table. Around the trees were some coins, pebbles and a rock. I guessed when Santa came through my window (like last year) he could place the gifts around the tree.

8 hours later

I woke up because I needed to go to the bathroom. I glanced over to where the table was and see a letter, NOT gifts. I opened the letter and tried to read it, but it was too dark. So I went to the bathroom, kept the letter under my pillow and went back to sleep.

2 hours later

Around 7 in the morning I woke up again. Since there was enough sunlight to read the letter, I read the letter. It said

I had to search where each present might be. These are the items I wrote in the letter I sent Santa.

1. Playstation 4 Controller
2. Dart Board
3. Rare coin
4. Matt Christopher world series book
5. Hot glue gun sticks

First, I checked the toy room thinking I may find the Dart board, nothing was there. Next, I checked the bookcase for the book. I found all the books neatly stacked on top of each other and with those books was the World Series book!

1. Playstation 4 Controller
2. Dart Board
3. Rare coin
4. Matt christopher world series book
5. Hot glue gun sticks

On the drawer right of the bookcase I found the Playstation 4 controller and it was gold!

1. Playstation 4 Controller
2. Dart Board
3. Rare coin
4. Matt Christopher world series book
5. Hot glue gun sticks

I would keep a rare coin in my purse, which is in my drawer, so I checked my drawer first. I went to my room and when I opened the drawer the coin was there. It was gold too. Later I did some research and I found out that the coin is

1. Worth 0.93 cents in U.S.D
2. Made in 2004
3. Very Rare
4. Is from Czech Republic
5. You cannot use it to pay anymore

1. Playstation 4 Controller
2. Dart Board
3. Rare coin
4. Matt christopher world series book
5. Hot glue gun sticks

Since I could not find the Dart Board, the last item is the Hot glue gun sticks. I asked my mom where the glue gun was and she said it was in the storage. On the 2nd drawer in the storage, I found the glue gun sticks and the hot glue.

1. Playstation 4 Controller
2. Dart Board
3. Rare coin
4. Matt christopher world series book
5. Hot glue gun sticks

That was my Christmas night! I still don’t know where the Dart Board is, or Santa never gave it. I got 4/5 items on my list!