National Parking Lot
NP Roadtrip – Yellowstone – Day 142 – 145
National Parking Lot
The last day I picked up my laptop to write was August 25th. I’m so sorry. I’ve been busy living life back at home after 7 months and obviously procrastinating big time. I am dedicated to writing at least twice a week until I’m done documenting our grand adventure. I’m not only making this declaration for you, but also for me. The road trip was easy! The detailed chronicles of our trip… not so much...especially when I have the distractions of home right in front of me and my laptop and journal purposely hidden under a stack of papers.
I believe we last left off as we were leaving South Dakota. Next time we visit this area, we will plan MUCH more time as it was an overwhelming surprise of beauty and wide-open space. We left Spearfish early in the morning without having much of a road plan, but knowing we wanted to get as close to Yellowstone as we possibly could. We also wanted to hit up Devils Tower National Monument, which was sort of kind of on the way. Oh, and thankfully it’s Father’s Day so Devils Tower is PACKED. We had to wait in a long line of cars to get in, a first on our trip for a monument. Once you drive up to the visitor center, there is extremely limited trailer/RV parking so instead of getting out and doing a hike, G had to circle the parking lot while I ran in and checked out the visitor center. Not ideal, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Devils Tower is stunning. I’m sure you all remember the iconic setting of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and experience did not disappoint. I only wish we had been able to get out and explore a little bit. It is really impressive though, even from the road.
After roadside sandwiches, we headed west to Bozeman. The following night we had reservations on the West side of the Yellowstone, so Bozeman offered the easiest access for our next day’s drive. Plus, it’s a pretty awesome little town and one of my favorite overnight stops. We drove right to Map Brewery so we could grab a quick bite to eat and catch the glorious sunset, along with a beer or two. It’s located directly in front of a lake, so the sunset view already had us in awe of the Montana beauty. Why did we only plan one night there??? The sister of a good Portland friend has a home right in town and graciously allowed us to park in front of her vacant home. We didn’t have access to water or electricity…or the…ahem…facilities. So we walked over to Plonk for a nightcap and a bathroom break. We will definitely have to plan a return trip to Bozeman. It’s charming, beautiful, and there were so many places that we would have loved to check out. In hindsight, we probably could have stayed a little longer, but our reservations the next night were at a unique campsite in Idaho and we weren’t sure what to expect. The ranger made us promise to be there by 10 am (really awkward request) so he could open it up for us. Not wanting to disappoint the ranger that morning, we caffeinated up and hightailed out of Bozeman heading south to the Big Springs Warming Hut.
What was our most unique camping spots of the trip? This one, without a doubt. The warming hut is open year-round, though it’s generally used in the winter as a spot for large groups of snow machine enthusiasts to stop and warm up. Basically, it’s a giant dirt parking lot with a restroom and another bigger building. In the building is a huge stove with fire wood, plenty of picnic style tables, as well as electricity. Yay!
The Yappy Campers soaking up the sun and exploring the woods.
After getting the lay of the land from the eccentric ranger, G parked the trailer at the edge of the trees that surround the property. The spot provided a good vantage point in the event of prying eyes and unwanted four-legged visitors. And boy did we have some visitors. There were mostly off-road vehicles that would drive through the parking lot, but we had one guy who came armed with a metal detector and made himself right at home. I wasn’t so comfortable with sharing our space, so I sent him on his way, and then promptly regretted it fearing that he would come in the middle of the night and seek revenge. Being alone in the woods will make your imagination run wild. Trust. Me.
We spent the rest of our first day at the Warming Hut lounging in the nice weather, planning the rest of our trip, and writing. It was lovely. The dogs prowled every single inch of the property sniffing and growling all over the place. I made cornbread and chili for dinner and we headed to bed early. After 6 months on the road, it’s amazing how in sync we’ve become when we both need a rest day.
We hit Yellowstone early in the morning, though that didn’t mean we avoided Yellowstone’s famous summer traffic. It took us an hour and a half just to get to Madison Junction from West Yellowstone, which is usually a 25 minute drive. That’s just crazy! And that was only the beginning. We explored a few of the campgrounds, just in case we caught a wild hare and wanted to try to move campgrounds in an effort to avoid traffic in the morning. There were a few campgrounds that had availability, which was promising, but the rangers urged us to get there as early as possible if we had a preferred spot. We decided to think on it and make a decision when we got back to camp if we were going to pull up camp the next day.
We spent the day exploring the Fountain Paint Pots, Orange Spring Mound, Mammoth Hot Springs, and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Due to traffic, lack of parking, and crowds, we didn’t have an opportunity to check out the South Rim so we made a plan to come back the next day for lunch and check out the newly renovated and re-opened Canyon Village. It was starting to get dark and we wanted to make sure to get back to camp for dinner before it was too late. You know the quote, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry”? Well, that quote was set into action on our way home by driving directly into a traffic jam. For FOUR HOURS. We played a game of telephone with the miles long trail of cars that seemingly went on forever and were able to deduce that we were, in fact, part of an infamous Yellowstone “Bison Jam”. We didn’t have any food in the car, though we had plenty of water thank goodness. By the time we drove through West Yellowstone we were so hungry we got gas station sandwiches (and amazingly lived to tell the story!). We didn’t make it back to the Big Springs Warming Hut until 12:15 a.m. What did we learn through this experience? We learned that we probably shouldn’t have stayed so far outesid of the park, to always have at least a few granola bars in the car, and to steer clear of the egg salad sandwiches at the Econo-Mart.
Following the “Bison Jam” incident, on the first official day of summer, we decided we should pull up camp and try to stay in the park for our third and last night. If we had been staying in the park the previous night, we wouldn’t have had an hours long ride home and only able to go one way out of the park. We would have been able to turn around at some point and go around one of Yellowstone’s two alternate routes in the opposite direction. We had had enough! No more traffic jams that we couldn’t escape from! Ultimately, we decided to wake up at 5:20 a.m. in order to get into the park early enough to secure one of the hard-to-get sites at Grant Village. Persistence paid off and we were 4th in line at the camp desk, which still made me worry we weren’t going to get a space. We waited 30 minutes for the 3 folks in front of us to secure a site. Really, really stressful. I couldn’t see the computer screens that the rangers use to secure sites, but I’m sure it involves dial-up, dot-matrix, MS-DOS, floppy discs and possibly even carrier pigeons. The poor lady in front of us merely wanted to see if she could move her tent onto her brother’s site and she was still in line before, during, and after we secured our site, unhitched the trailer, and left again to explore the park.
Our last day in the park was the most relaxing of all the days. Of course there were still crowds, but we didn’t sweat it. We took our time to do the things that we REALLY wanted to do. First, we checked out the Fishing Bridge area. We were curious about the campground there, because it’s the only one in the park with RV hook-ups. We also went to the Visitor Center where they have some awesome bird displays. We also stopped at the Mud Volcano, which was pretty cool. During a chat with a ranger, he let us know he just had a tourist lose something in one of the geothermal pools. He said it happens all the time, even though there are signs letting visitors know of the extreme dangers that exist in these areas of the park. Ugh.
Just before lunchtime we checked out the South loop of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. The line to get to the parking area snaked up the road, and we weren’t sure how long it would take, so I hopped out of the car to walk and check it out on my own. The idea here is that G could maybe get a parking space while I get a jump on exploring. Then I can sit in the car with the dogs while G explores. Admittedly, it’s not my favorite way to check things out, but it works in a crazy traffic-y situation. After taking in Inspiration Point and also a short hike along the canyon rim, we went over to Canyon Village where we ate a packed lunch of camp sandwiches at one of their many outdoor picnic tables. However, next time I’d be checking out the awesome selection of prepared food, restaurant choices, ice cream, wine/beer, etc. at the various shops. There is something for everyone, including ample parking! Finally!!! We capped off our meal with a little bit of window shopping and an ice cream. We meandered back down the lower loop road for the rest of the day eventually making our way back to our heavily wooded, though lake-front campsite. We made a really quick meal of Chicken Taco Salad and got the dogs settled in bed. Not 45 minutes later we were off again headed to Old Faithful to catch the sunset. It’s a really pretty time to go, not super crowded, except for the mosquitos. We cannot seem to escape the little suckers! Exhaustion set in quickly right after sunset, so we headed back to Grant Village and went directly to bed.
I don’t think I need to go back to Yellowstone for a very long time. We were chatting with someone about the park on the road, and they made a comment that I’ll never forget. They said that Yellowstone is “Adult Disneyland”. This reference can have both positive and negative connotations. It’s beautiful and wonderful and frustrating and crowded. It’s seeing things you never saw possible in real time. It’s sharing those experience with a gazillion other people, all at the same time, and fighting for your place in line. I’m so grateful I’ve seen it and I would recommend anyone go there that has never been. But for now, Camp Buy Me Love – Out.
