This was initially posted on my previous blog on October 2, 2016.
So this is the first change in my itinerary with what I assume will be many more. My mom decided to join for the first part of the trip and since she hadn’t been to Yellowstone, we added it and got rid of Little Bighorn and Great Falls. The only bad thing about adding Yellowstone is it added a 10 hour driving day after the long drive to the Badlands.
After viewing the Badlands and Wall Drug, we got a late start on our 10 hour drive to West Yellowstone. I found a KOA there since all but one campground was closed in Yellowstone and the one open was filled. West Yellowstone was great but it definitely added driving time since we had to go from Wyoming, up into Montana and through Billings and Bozeman, before heading south back into Wyoming to West Yellowstone. This drive seemed to take forever unlike the drive the day before. Lesson learned: Avoid two long travel days in a row. Lesson learned: Start the drive early so you at least get to the destination before sunset. Leaving Wall Drug around 10am put us in West Yellowstone after dark which also made the drive seem longer. The drive was prettier though since we were mostly surrounded by hills, mountains, or other fun things to look at and there was no wind. Only 4 gas stops this day! We arrived at our KOA in West Yellowstone around 8:30, set up camp, and had cereal for dinner since we were too tired to prepare anything. We had one day to explore Yellowstone so it was an early to bed night to have energy for the next day.
Day 3: Yellowstone
I had visited Yellowstone two years ago with some friends and enjoyed it. Luckily I remembered the layout of the park and things that we loved to ensure we hit them. We were on the road by 7:30am to ensure we had enough time to enjoy the entire park. As we were leaving the change oil and engine coolant alerts came on my car (yes…more car fun). We stopped at a local auto shop to see if they could change my oil since it had been on for a bit despite just having it changed. They said they could get me in on Friday (way too late given this was Tuesday) and we figured we could have it looked at in Glacier if needed. The engine coolant light went out as the day went on.
We decided to head south to Old Faithful before the crowds got large. Once on the main loop, we ran into a huge group of bison that we had to take pictures of (along with the rest of the traffic going by). There was even a baby bison which was so cute.
Then off to see Grand Prismatic Spring because I wanted to show my mom the incredible colors I saw two years ago. Sadly a fog covered most of the area and the colors were very muted from our view. It was disappointing but not much I could do and my pictures from last visit were so good that I probably couldn’t have topped them.
Old Faithful wasn’t too crowded and we got there right around the estimated eruption time so we found a spot that we could see over people and waited. 15 minutes later (and well after the expected time), it erupted and made the crowd happy. It is a cool thing to see in nature, but I am really not that big of a fan of geysers. I am much more amazed by mountains, but I respect nature’s ability to harness its energy. The more exciting part was that when we were walking away, a bison snuck in around the crowd and decided to walk towards the other hot springs area. The park rangers were immediately there to protect him (or probably more us so we didn’t do anything stupid), but I got some great pictures. Another positive was that I could get Callie out of the car and sit on the benches near the Visitor Center and relax while enjoying some snacks. She loves any chance to get out and move about.
Next stop was West Thumb. I had skipped this on my previous trip (probably because we were over geysers and hot springs), so we stopped here. I loved this stop! It was geysers and hot springs right off Yellowstone Lake. The view was so beautiful and the springs had the beautiful blue water that I was expecting earlier that morning. We took our time admiring the lake before heading back to the car. While driving around the lake, I took a few chances to pull over and take some pictures. I mentioned that I love mountains but I also love water so I couldn’t resist more pictures.
Off to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone (another favorite of mine). My mom is very scared of heights so I was impressed that she was able to enjoy the canyon viewpoints and might have even looked down. Tiny Tom’s Trail to the bottom of the waterfall was out of the question though so we enjoyed the view and decided to head out.
This was the decision point, head back to the trailer for a relaxing evening or go see Mammoth Hot Springs. I think I convinced my mom into wanting to see Mammoth hot springs so we stayed on the main loop and took the road though the larger hills. Beautiful views the entire time (mom might beg to differ). We finally got to Mammoth Hot Springs and found a family of elk hanging out in the field. These guys were huge! We did a quick walk through the boardwalk around Mammoth Hot Springs, but I think the heat (yes it was almost 80 degrees in late September) and exhaustion were kicking. We grabbed ice cream on the way out of town though. I hadn’t been feeling well most of the day with a sore throat so we figured the ice cream would help. We started on the route back to Norris (the way home) when we realized the road was closed and instead of 18 miles to Norris, we had to go back through the hills for 47 miles (not happy). I did get some wonderful pictures on the road from Mammoth to Norris before we realized it was closed.
I was now feeling really sick. I get really sick the first few days of a cold and this was the start. I just wanted to be back in the trailer so I could lay down, but that wasn’t going to happen. We approached a traffic jam and wondered if it was caused by a bison or bear viewing. I was so happy to hear it was a bear sighting and quickly pulled over. I didn’t get to see a bear the last visit so I was determined to see one this visit. After running across the street, we found out it was a grizzly bear way down a field that I could barely see even with my camera’s best zoom. I was able to see it lift it’s head once so I can confirm it was a bear. We continued back to the KOA until another traffic jam brought us to a complete standstill. I followed a few cars into the pull off to see what was causing it. It was a pack of around 15 bison walking down the street like they were oncoming traffic. It was incredible to see them walking down the road and then having cars follow slowly after them. They seemed very happy with themselves and it was so fun to watch. Gotta love traffic jams in Yellowstone as they are almost always caused by animals. It was a long day but so much fun to see as much as we did.
Day 4: Change in Plans
The plan was to leave for Glacier National Park early the next morning. We got up, packed up, and were on the road at around 7:15. We made it about 15 miles down the road and realized that something was horribly wrong with my car. It was shaking anytime I put my foot on the gas. I pulled over to look at a map to see where I could have it looked at (yes it was that bad) and found that West Yellowstone was the best bet. So we turned around to head back and I pulled up the different auto shops and had mom call them to see if we could bring the car in. Randy’s Auto Shop in West Yellowstone said to bring it right in and he would give it a look. We thought it was probably the oil change or engine coolant (even though that didn’t make sense for shaking but we were hoping). We walked around West Yellowstone (a cute touristy town) and finally got the call that my front axle was broken and needed to be replaced. To add insult to injury, the closest part was in Utah but he could have it delivered asap and would fix it the following morning. We walked back to the shop to get a rental and got the news that the closest part was actually in Denver and he wouldn’t have it until Friday morning. There was nothing we could do about it so we asked the ladies at the desk for a good thing to do that day since it was already close to noon. We were told to check out Mesa Falls and I was actually really excited to have a full day to drive down to Grand Tetons the following day.
We returned to the KOA and they happily towed our trailer into a site and we reset up. Not the plans we were hoping for, but we were determined to make the best of it and go from there. My fingers were crossed that the cost of the repair wouldn’t be too much either. Oh and that it would actually be fixed on Friday since our KOA was closing on Friday so we couldn’t stay there if anything else went wrong. You never know what you will get with cross country road trips.