We just got back from a lovely few days of vacation – hence the late blog post! Dan and I took a road trip to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone, and it was so great to get away for a few days.

Have any of you been to either park before? This was Dan and my first time to both, and we experienced a lot of amazing sites and critters we’d never seen before. If you have been, we are curious to hear your testimony of the trip. We were talking as we were driving through on the last day, wondering what everyone takes away from the experience. Obviously everyone has different interests, so we were curious what you liked and disliked!

As for us, I’ll give you a bit of a rundown of our trip – in case either of these parks are on your bucket list!

Also, want to give a quick shout out to my cousin, Jessie, who gave us lots of pointers on what to see and where to stay since they had gone through the parks last year. Thank you!! It was super helpful knowing ahead of time what to expect!

First of all, be prepared for a LONG drive. Our drive from Watertown was almost 14 hours, so prepare to spend an entire day in the vehicle. If you’re going to do it all in one shot like us, anyway. It honestly wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be though. Must have been because I had such good company. 🙂

We only had 3 days of exploring, so we made the most of it. We spent our first day – of not driving anyway – in the Grand Tetons, and let me tell you: this park does not get nearly enough hype. I hadn’t heard of it before last year when we started planning, so I’m either out of touch, or it isn’t talked about enough. But it is so freaking beautiful!! The mountains and the wildlife around it just take your breath away.

Dan and I went to Jenny Lake while we were there. There’s a 7 mile trail that goes around the whole lake, but there’s also a ferry that will take you across if you don’t want to walk the whole thing. We were going to take the ferry, but at the last minute, said screw it, and we did the whole thing! I’m glad we did!! It was so beautiful and I think we would have missed out if we had only done part of it.

We saw lots of wildlife too. On the trail, we came across two bears, but there were so many people around at that point, I really wasn’t very afraid. The bears didn’t seem to care, and if they got mad, we weren’t too worried about being the slowest ones there if ya catch my drift.

We saw a moose too, and that one did make me a little nervous! He was about 20 feet above us on the trail and we would have had to walk by him to keep going. There was a handful of others around at this point, but not as many as by the bears. We watched him for a while and when it seemed clear he wasn’t going to move, we tried to keep moving forward. But of course as soon as we go by him, he starts coming down to the path towards us! Dan grabbed my arm and told me to keep moving and give him space, and for a minute it did look like he was going to follow us, but he just wanted to keep going downhill for a drink of water. It was cool being that close, but I was a little worried haha.

Here’s the moose we ran into. The trail is right behind him. He crossed it shortly behind us and kept going down to the lake.

We got lucky, as with only about half a mile or so left of our hike, it started to rain. We got a little wet, but it was bearable. We ate our lunch in the car while we watched the rain and then took off for more exploring.

We drove around and took scenic routes as we found them. We sat alongside the river and watched some beaver for a while and it was so peaceful. It was one of the few times we weren’t surrounded by other people so it was nice to have a little solitude.

We stayed out until dark looking for other animals and taking it all in. Dan even heard a Ruffed Grouse at one point (it’s a bird, look it up) so we went looking for it and we found it! I swear, Dan was like a kid on Christmas, it was awesome to see him so excited.

Day 2, we packed up our stuff and made our way north to Yellowstone. We spent most of the day exploring the West Thumb Geyser Basin and all the geysers around Old Faithful. There were a lot more geysers in both areas than I thought, in fact there were geysers EVERYWHERE in Yellowstone. The park is one big hot spot and they pop up all over the place.

And while Dan and I thought the geysers were cool, and we can say we’ve seen them, we both admitted it was our least favorite part of the trip. We didn’t see a lot of wildlife around the geysers – not nothing, but not as much as we had the day before – and it felt like a huge tourist trap. It’s not quite peak season yet, but there were still enough people there that it got kind of frustrating at parts. But you never know until you try!

We decided to have an earlier evening on day 2 and checked into the next hotel around 5pm, had supper and relaxed a while before crashing early. We were pretty tuckered out!

Day 3, we felt like we wanted to pack in as much of the park as we could, especially since it was our last day. We were staying in the west half of the park, and we ventured all over the place. We made our way east to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, which was breathtakingly beautiful, but also kind of terrifying as we were up REALLY high!! We found a 3 mile trail that we hiked and were able to find a bunch of other birds, and even a couple lakes on top of the mountain which was cool.

We ventured up north and both LOVED the landscape up there. It was still mountainous, but a little less wooded, so we were able to see all kinds of wildlife around. On the way back, we stopped at Mammoth Springs and checked out a few more geysers to get out of the car for a little bit. It was cool too!

Overall, it was fabulous! It went way too fast, but we loved it. I am glad we went when we did. Any sooner, and there would have been a lot of snow to deal with yet. There was still some in spots while we were there, but not much. Any later, and we would have run into peak season crowds, and I don’t think I would have been able to enjoy it with all those people – even now was borderline too many!

I will say, if you plan on going: DRIVE SAFE. We ran into traffic accidents both days we were in Yellowstone and it’s mostly because people get impatient and try to pass other drivers. And in Yellowstone, 90% of the time if you can’t make a pass and end up going off the road, you’re not just off the road, you’re either going into a tree or off a cliff.

The first car accident we saw, someone went into a tree and their car was totaled. No idea what shape the people were in, but I hope they were okay. The second accident we came across backed up traffic for over five miles, and we were stuck for almost 2 hours. Just do everyone a favor and drive carefully! Enjoy the park, you’re not in that big of a hurry!!

Anyway, I’m sad our vacation is over, but ready to get back home to Dobby and a normal routine again. I loved every second of our trip, and can’t wait to see what adventure we take next!

Until next time! 🙂

Megan Reiffenberger