I was able to visit Yellowstone National Park in 2022. We went on a road trip to get there, I probably do road trips a little differently than most. I like to map out where I’m going and check for things I want to see along the route. Other than some stops to look at, I pretty much drive straight to where I’m going. It is an interesting experience to drive all day and night and to see the sunset and the sunrise through the trip.
On my way to Yellowstone, I planned a stop at Iowa 80.
It is the largest truck stop in the world and a very cool place to visit. You can look at some of the custom big rigs they have inside and even get into them, or at least there was nothing saying not to when I was there.
One of my favorite things about driving there is to start to see the geography change as your driving. The first time I drove out that way through South Dakota I remember seeing the change while crossing the Lake Francis Case-Mo River on I90 and I couldn’t help but start to think about the old western movies I like to watch. We continued pushing through towards Yellowstone and I had the bright idea to get an energy drink at a gas station, really bad idea. I used to drink them a lot, but backed off because they make me crash hard. I thought it might help me push through the last leg of the trip. At first I felt like I had just woken up from a great nights sleep, that lasted for about an hour and a half and when I started to come off of that, then wow I couldn’t have felt more tired. So we pulled over and I tried to get a power nap before continuing.
We drove into Yellowstone through Montana to the North, although the North entrance was closed at the time. It was very interesting to see Big Sky Country, there is nothing but road and land for as far as you can see. We got to see how the Native Americans are living. We stopped to get gas and the spot we were in seemed like a poverty stricken area however, the people around didn’t give me any red flags that would make me feel scared. Bozeman was a very beautiful town to drive through, I would actually like to visit Bozeman and get to check it out. We continued on our way to West Yellowstone, the town we were staying in. It is an awesome walkable little town butted right up to the West entrance of the park.
The hotel we were initially staying at was called the Brandin Iron Inn. When we got there we changed our room to a basement room that had a full kitchen, with a full size fridge. The room was a little musty at first but I always take a special spray called Air Force when I go on trips to kill odors and possible germs. The room was nice overall until some people get the room right next to us. it sounded like they had 50 people in the room constantly banging on the walls and making tons of noise. If you go on vacation, try to be considerate and not make constant noise AT 3AM! The breakfast at the Brandin Iron was pathetic, the “hot” food seemed like they kept reheating the food from previous days until it was gone. Because of the noise we switched hotels to the Stagecoach Inn, the rooms were clean and most importantly quiet. The breakfast at the Stagecoach Inn was also an improvement, although still not great but they had fresh fruit which I liked. The only real complaint I may have about them is the lobby seemed to have dust in the area from the decorative stuffed animals and because I have slight allergies, would get to me while drinking coffee. Otherwise the Stagecoach Inn was fine and would probably be my go-to hotel if and when I go back.
West Yellowstone is an awesome little town to stay in, it’s a tourist town which I really like. There are plenty of places to eat, souvenir shops, ice cream stands, and everything you really need to enjoy your trip. I would recommend staying longer than you think you need to visit the park, this is the mistake we made. Everything to see is a long drive and possibly a long hike. This is a time consuming trip so if you really want to enjoy it consider staying for at least two weeks. One cool place we got to go to was the Wild West Pizzeria, it was kind of funny while we were walking in some girl tried to tell us not to go there, we went in anyway and had a really nice experience. We got ice cream in town a few times, if you want good ice cream in West Yellowstone DO NOT GO TO HAGEN DAUZ! It doesn’t taste the same as the store bought stuff and to me was almost like they flavored the chocolate with Hershey’s syrup. The local ice cream stands in town make the best ice cream, one that I enjoyed was an orange chocolate flavor. Another cool place to visit in town is the Yellowstone T-shirt Company, you can get all kinds of custom designs on shirts and hoodies. I really like picking out my own designs and colors and getting a one of a kind souvenir.
Finally getting to the good part, going into the park. When we started going into the park there was a traffic jam, in the park after the gate. It was at a stand still and we didn’t know what the hold up was. After awhile we see a herd of buffalo just casually walking down the road which was pretty cool at first. This is one of the reasons you will need more time buffalo really seem to like to walk and lay on the road and block traffic.
The next thing we visited was the Old Faithful Geyser and the Old Faithful Inn. The Inn is an amazing building to see and you can go in even if you are not staying there, which you should just to see the structure of the log cabin, it is amazing. From the balcony at the Inn you can sit and watch Old Faithful erupt. It is an awesome thing to see especially when you think about everything involved in the eruption under the surface. From Old Faithful you can walk down a trial to see the Morning Glory pool. It is a very beautiful thing to see. Don’t ruin it for everyone else by throwing stuff in it, they are having serious problems with people doing that and could ruin it forever. The trail down to the Morning Glory also has several other geysers along the way and if your fortunate maybe you’ll get to see them erupt on the hike.
My favorite part was seeing the Grand Prismatic Spring. It is amazing that all of the colors are bacteria living at different temperatures. You can see the spring at ground level from a trail that walks around it and other pools and you can hike up a trail to get the iconic viewpoint of the Grand Prismatic Spring. At night we drove back into the park and pulled off around the Grand Prismatic Spring area to see the milky way, it is amazing to see without all the light pollution. It is pitch black when you cut off the lights and really gives you an eerie feeling. We also got to see some wolves while driving which was cool.
We made sure to visit Yellowstone falls and the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone which is a really cool spot to see. Yellowstone lake is pretty neat too and there is a hotel there which might be nice to plan a trip too. Hot Springs was an awesome spot to visit. When we drove through the town we noticed a ton of signs saying not to feed wildlife. It wasn’t until we came back through we saw why. There were elk everywhere walking and laying around in town. They didn’t seem bothered by cars or people one bit, very cool to see.
We took one day to visit the Grand Tetons. They really are their own trip however if you don’t think you will make it back out there I would recommend getting to see them. So we drove down the Idaho side into Jackson and visited the town for a bit. Jackson seems really cool and I would have loved to spend more time there but we needed to keep moving. We then went into Grand Teton National Park and got to see the beautiful mountains from some of the most iconic spots like Mormon Row. There are cabins on Jackson Lake and we drove up to look at them, that’s were I’m going to try and stay when I go back out someday, they have beautiful views.
Trying to spot some of the wildlife out there can be a challenge. We stopped by a river to have a picknick and didn’t get to see Yogi, I did notice the cool looking dragon flies they have that are blue and reddish orange in color. We drove around a lot with binoculars looking for moose and bear. We actually had given up and decided to cheat by visiting the bear and wolf habitat in town. It wasn’t until the last day there that we saw a couple of wild grizzlies laying in a field, that was really great to finally see them in nature. While driving out we also got to see a bull elk and he was HUGE, we had seen a lot of cow elk but the bull elks size and huge antlers were really impressive to see. The only thing missing was moose, I guess that’s why I’ll have to go back. As we were leaving the park we had to drive up into the mountains and there was fog so thick you couldn’t see a car in front or behind you. So we did our best to inch our way forward and I was just happy nothing happened.
On our way out we planned to stay one night in Cody, Wyoming. We booked an Air BnB at a ranch. From the online pictures it looked like we would have a decent view from the porch of the cabin, the porch faced their house. The cabin was clean and everything but I was disappointed that we didn’t really have some privacy. If I go back to Cody I think I’ll try staying at the Irma. We went to the Irma for drinks and had a nice experience it is a really nice looking place. Sadly we didn’t have time to see a rodeo out there and Cody claims to be the rodeo capital of the world so if you make it out that way hopefully you can check it out. We did get to go to Old Trail Town and see the Hole in the Wall gangs’ cabin which was neat to see. After that we made our way back towards the second part of the road trip, Mount Rushmore and Sturgis.