Yellowstone National Park
We had been waiting for a good 20 minutes— and nothing! The Old Faithful, as the famous geyser is called, remained silent. Hundreds of us tourists waited in the sun, holding our breath. And then, just when we were about to give up and leave, The Old Faithful came alive!
Boiling water and steam shot up towards the sky, to the unanimous awe of its beholders. Like everything else in Yellowstone National Park, it was worth the wait.
There's something poetic about a quiet road trip through a land overrun with streams and hills. Between grumbling about leg space and stuffing our faces with potato chips, we would stop at gorges and waterfalls and the occasional bear sighting.
The bear cubs were, hands down, the stars of the show. Despite strict signs clearly prohibiting it, mama bear sightings would stop all cars on their tracks, blocking the narrow roads. Some of us, a little too daring, would get out of our cars to get a better look, only to be scolded by the park rangers. Reluctantly, we would walk back to our cars and continue with our journey across the park.
The hot springs were our favourite. We would spend hours staring at them. The turquoise blue pools looked good enough to swim in, and if we had not known better we would have jumped right in. Incredibly photogenic, they were the stuff of Instagram dreams.
We returned to our hotel for the night. It was, like most hotels there, outside the park gates. Dinner consisted of a hearty chicken roast with generous pourings of gravy, carrots and potatoes. We tucked into the comfortable beds of our quaint bed and breakfast and dreamt of bear cubs and potato chips.
The next morning, over a breakfast of coffee and lemon poppy seed cupcakes, we decided to do one last round at the park before leaving for our next destination. A deer photobombed my sister. My father lost a shoe. With happy hearts and a camera full of pictures, we ended our trip.
The Yellowstone National Park is located in the US states of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. Yellowstone was the first National Park in the US and is also widely held to be the first national park in the world.
The park is known for its wildlife and its many geothermal features, especially The Old Faithful geyser, one of its most popular features. It has many types of ecosystems, but the subalpine forest is the most abundant.
Photo: Sheema Hossain
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