Yellowstone National Park

When I was about thirteen years old, my dad took the whole family out to Yellowstone National Park.  I was kind of an awkward kid, and I really did feel like I had something to prove at that age. As such, it was hard for me to go on vacation with my family. I would always get into fights with my sister and my brother in the car. It was almost painful for me to sit still.

As our road trip neared its destination of Yellowstone National Park, however, I grew still. I had never seen anything quite like the countryside I was driving through. It was big and empty, and the sky was huge above us. Soon, mountains began to loom up quite impressively from all around. As a child of Michigan, I was not used to seeing any big changes in elevation, so suddenly being in the presence of all those mountains made quite an impression on me.

When we finally got to Yellowstone National Park, however, I was more than ready to stop driving! We had made a brief detour through the Grand Tetons National Park, but had scarcely taken the time to stop and stretch our legs before we were out on the road again. My dad was always one of those dads who wanted to get there as quickly as possible, which made for long hours of endless driving.

The first thing that we went to see in Yellowstone National Park was the Old Faithful Geyser. I had a lot of trouble believing that it was as faithful as they said but, sure enough, it erupted when it was supposed to almost to the second. If I saw it nowadays, I do not know if I would be quite as impressed, but as a kid I absolutely loved it. I also loved looking at the hot springs and smelling the sulfurous odor that came from everything.

One of the best things about the trip, however, was national park fishing. My dad had reserved a fishing license for Yellowstone National Park months in advance, and could hardly wait to go once we got there. I had never been fishing before, and once I started I was surprised to find that my dad was quite an able fisherman. He knew just where to cast to find the biggest and best trout. The fish there was out of this world! You just can’t beat catching it yourself.

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