Had to leave Grandma's house at 4:50 am in order to get a first-come campsite in the middle of Yellowstone. Normally getting up at that hour would suck bad, especially since we didnt even give ourselves time for coffee....and it kinda still did, but the drive through Yellowstone National Park at the break of dawn was magic. Sheer, two-thousand foot granite cliffs, lodgepole pines and the Shoshone river cutting through the whole thing was really indescribable. This was followed by foggy Hayden Valley.

As we mentioned earlier, campsites in these popular national parks are a real pain to get and we soon found out just HOW bad it can get. As we pulled into the Norris Campground parking lot at 6:30am, one and a half hours before the ranger even starts giving out sites, we were greeted by a LINE of cars we can't even see the end of. So, I hop out and run up the hill and find ANOTHER line of waiting at the campground office.

Im in shorts and flipflops and its like 40 degrees and I realize I have to wait in line. So I ran back down the hill to tell Steph what was going on. Our reaction....

Long story short I ended up making coffee on the side of the road while Steph held our place in line and we ended up getting a campsite around 9:15. On the plus side, we met lots of interesting people with lots of interesting stories about their travels.

We set up camp and then started exploring the north loop of Yellowstone. First up was Mammoth Hot Springs, but before we got there we saw this guy hanging out on the side of the road.

We also took a detour to Sheepeater Cliff on the way

And finally Mammoth, where you literally witness the birth of new rock.

We then rode through the massive Lamar Valley, but the day was hot and we were pretty tired so we didn't get out a whole lot. We did however manage to swing by the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone for a bit.

After a long day of driving and exploring we got back to camp around 6, had some cold beers(Caldera Brewing) and grilled some burgers and hotdogs.