My mom and I stayed the night just five short miles from the actual eastern gateway to Yellowstone National Park at the Pahaska Tepee Resort in the Wapiti Valley. The Resort was also built by Cody, and it is a charming collection of well cared for rustic cabins. When we checked in, we were given the standard bear warnings (which freaked my mom out) and told that there's been a bison on the property so we should beware. We were also told, after asking, that there are plenty of moose around, and they could be seen right out front all day that day. (yippeeeeee!) Since it was late when we arrived, we passed right out so we could get an early start the next day for maximum time in Yellowstone.
As we were walking down to breakfast the next morning, I jokingly told my mom that, hey, we could see a bison up close because there was a statue on the grass...and then the statue moved and I realized they weren't joking when they said there was a bison roaming the property...
Post breakfast, mom and I spent a lot of time trying to scout for the moose that had been seen that very morning. Despite our best efforts following tracks and everything, no moose were to be found. So we took some pics and headed to....Yellowstone!
Yaayyy! So excited for our day roaming around the Park. Maybe we'll see Yogi Bear! :)
First stop: Yellowstone Lake. Yellowstone is interesting because there is a lot of geothermal activity, so there are all kinds of ways the earth is "venting," which can be seen even in the lake
As we were driving around, my mom thought she saw a moose, so we pulled over and started hiking toward the greenery. My mom freaked out a little bit because she wasn't sure we should try to follow it or that we should just be wandering around (it was literally a hiking trail), but we walked around a bit anyway. I kinda thought I saw something too, but we never really got a good look. We enjoyed getting out of the car though!
Eventually we made it to the visitors center and shopping! near the fishing bridge (pic below), where we did a lot of souvenir shopping and stopped for a yummy lunch :) When we stopped at the ranger station, we got some great advice from a very enthusiastic ranger who told us a few "must sees" to get the most out of the park!
We also made our own random stops along the way. Mud pools:
And we saw
a lot of bison. These ones were right off the road! I could practically pet them!
Our first official "must see" stop was at Canyon Village to see the "grand canyon" of Yellowstone. We were not disappointed... The sides of the canyon are beautiful shades of pinks, reds, yellows and whites. Soooo pretty!
We learned pretty quickly that in Yellowstone you need to keep an eye out for nature, but you also need to pull over when everyone else is pulled over because there's probably something cool out there. Below, a shot of a coyote. Not too rare, but still cool.
Gorgeous, constantly changing landscape:
More bison! We really did see a lot of bison! (And sadly, we saw one dead bison. A TON of people had pulled over and were setting up chairs for their long range camera lenses to wait for the bears and other predators to come feed on the carcass. We learned later that the bears and coyotes and wolves did come, but I was glad we didn't hang out to watch. It's depressing enough seeing that kind of stuff on the discovery channel. It would have been neat to see bears, but I think watching them eat would have made me cry).
And we saw a few geysers from the side of the road. This one was pretty cool!
And then we made it to Old Faithful! We got to the visitors center and were trying to get oriented when I saw on a computer screen that it was set to blow in ten minutes. We raced over to the site and within a few minutes, this was happening...(such perfect timing!!)
It was pretty cool! Finally, we headed to our last Yellowstone "must-see" which was West Thumb. A series of all different thermal pools, we saw some really incredible space-looking things! Sooo amazing!!!
And on our way out, we (aka, my mom) noticed animal prints in the concrete. Clearly nature doesn't have to abide by the "wet concrete" signs ;)
As we were headed out of Yellowstone to Grand Teton National Park, we saw all these cars pulled over and found out there were Elk on both sides of the street. We obviously pulled over to get a better view. When I saw the first one, I thought I was staring at a gigantic horse (the sun was in my eyes) and my brain couldn't process what I was seeing - it was so huge and beautiful! There were more on the other side of the street as well, and if you look closely, you can see them below...
A little while later my mom suddenly yelped and tried to find a place to turn around because she had a "surprise" for me. I thought she had seen a moose, but she thinks it was a male elk with the big horns (the ones we saw were female). We tried to go back to see it, and actually made like four passes, but couldn't find it. What a bummer! Sneaky wildlife!
The Grand Grand Tetons
Yellowstone leads into Grand Teton National Park and my mom and I had opted to stay at the Jackson Lake Lodge which was near the northern end of the park. That way we could drive through the Tetons on our way to Nevada the next day. Even though it was getting late, we did see some pretty views of the mountains.
While the cottages at the Jackson lodge weren't anything special, there is a big lodge room with floor to ceiling windows with a view we assumed would be amazing in the light of day. And normally, it is. Except when we went down to breakfast the next morning, we saw this:
Yea. Unfortunately, all the smoke from all the fires was strong enough that it was blocking our perfect view of the mountains!!!! (though check out how pretty the almost desert-looking flatland is in the first photo!)
As we continued to drive, the view got a bit clearer, but it was never quite as crystal clear as we would have liked. Guess we'll just have to come back again....
Near the southern end of the park, we were told there's a little lake where moose love to hang out, so we took a slight detour to go moose scouting again. But, again, we missed the moose. Until that point, I had really not given up hope that I'd get to see a moose, so I was plunged into almost-tears when it was clear I wouldn't be seeing a moose on this trip. I realize that sounds ridiculous but I was just so bummed! Of course, if that's the low point of the trip, it's obvious that it was a really great trip. I got over my disappointment and we continued on to the very cute, almost ritzy town of Jackson Hole for lunch.
Here we are at the Cowboy Bar. We thought about eating there, but you had to straddle a saddle (which sounds like fun, but is actually really uncomfortable and awkward), so we went elsewhere.
The Final Road Home
Post Jackson, we made our way into Idaho...
...and then into Nevada. We stayed in Elko, NV because it boasted the "Ruby Mountains" which were cool but not much more than something to check out briefly, for us anyway. After staying in Elko, we just went right back into Cali and were home on late Saturday afternoon. After the Grand Tetons, the rest of the trip was pretty straightforward. There was a combination of really beautiful areas in Idaho (and a few in Nevada, but not as many), and some deserts, and lots of casinos through NV. We stopped in Trukee for lunch, and made it home shortly thereafter...
This is what was waiting for me/us when we got there, courtesy of the Rainey girls. The sign, obviously, says welcome home. Then one side says "let's party" and the other one says "now stay!" I guess I'm not supposed to do so much traveling anymore....
And what did I do on Sunday??? Well, I spent a very large chunk of time trying to clean/scrape all the BUGS BUGS BUGS off my car. The poor baby car hadn't been washed since I had left for the first half of the road trip in May! Oops!
So there you have it. My road trip has officially come to an end. Thirty-one states (including a few Canadian provinces), four months, one part-time job, the remainder of my savings, well over 10,000 miles and countless great memories later, I'm back. My goal was to see the US and experience the different pockets of culture we have to offer. And I feel like I definitely saw just how much beauty we have in the states. That being said, I think you could easily travel around the US for two years straight and still not see and experience everything we have here. There are a lot of places I'd like to re-visit and new places I'd like to see. So really, this is just the start. But a very, very good start. When I head out on my next adventure, I'll be sure to keep you posted. In the meantime, I'll be the girl looking for a job and getting re-settled in Nor Cal :)
Lots of love,
Emily
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