Yellowstone National Park never disappoints–you just need to go in every day with no expectations of what you will experience and each encounter will be magical! I was on blog hiatus for the past two weeks; I know I just started my weekly Tuesday posts, but I hope I get a pass—I was in Yellowstone Park!!

Yellowstone was designated America’s first national park in 1872—an almost unbelievable accomplishment  to consider in this modern age. It is hard to comprehend just how vast a wilderness it is until you climb over a hill in a trail, leaving the road behind and you listen to the absence of modern sounds. The music you hear is the wind, the bird sounds, or a waterfall and if you are very lucky, wolves howling. It contains the world’s largest collection of geysers and is one of the last, nearly intact, natural ecosystems in the Earth’s temperate zone. This mountain park is home to all the ‘A-list’ North American mammals; grizzly bears, black bears, wolves, cougars,  and big herds of elk and bison. There are also many other species of smaller mammals and birds as well as being home to more than 1,350 vascular plants! Everywhere you look is a natural history painter’s dream world come to life!

So today’s post is my love letter to Yellowstone Park written with a few of my favorite photographs; until we meet again Yellowstone!