Yellowstone

Oh, Yellowstone - you are so, so lovely.

We rolled into Gardiner, Montana after a nice 4 + hour drive out of Greybull, Wyoming and through the Beartooth Mountains and the Gallatin Range. Gardiner is just outside of the North entrance to Yellowstone National Park. In my initial planning I thought we would drive West from Greybull to Cody and into the park, then through the park up to the north entrance and Gardiner. Looking at a map it sure looks like the shortest route. Clearly, I do not remember my trip to Yellowstone as a kid in 2004 – at least not the car rides. The roads are windy and narrow, mountainous and uneven. The rare RV we did see out there was creeping along, clearly regretful of its decision. Thank goodness for the RV GPS and its recommendations, or we would have found ourselves in trouble on those steep, curvy roads!

We stayed at the Rocky Mountain RV Park in Gardiner, Montana and we could not have been closer to the Yellowstone action without being in the park itself. We only had a few days to pack in all of Yellowstone that we could, so as soon as we arrived, we set up, packed the cooler and backpack, and hopped back in the truck for a jam-packed afternoon. More time in the car! Yes!

Before we even got in the park we spotted an elk family grazing on the hillside next to us – we’re pretty sure it was a welcoming party. It set the bar quite high for what was to come. We set our sights on the geysers in Norris, about a 45-minute drive, as our first stop, and made our way there while excitedly looking out for wildlife on the way.

As we approached the Norris geysers and were waiting in line for a place to park (strangely this was the only place in the entire park where we had to wait in a line longer than a few minutes), I happened to glance over at the dashboard. This is not something I do. While I am frequently accused of backseat driving, particularly while on mountain roads, my agreed-upon jobs in the truck are to oversee the PSI and temperature of the RV tires (through an app), to navigate, and to retrieve toys and snacks for the girls. Alex is in charge of the truck. So, it could only have been divine intervention that led me to glace at the dashboard and see that we were almost out of fuel. Not low on fuel – out of fuel.

At the risk of overstepping and telling Alex something he already knew and had total control over (he loves that), I mentioned the fuel gauge. After a few moments of initial denial (his words): “What? No way,” “That can’t be,” “It must be wrong,” “Could the fuel gauge be broken?” etc., we decided to trust the truck and look for a place to refuel. However, we were in the middle of Yellowstone and phone service was nonexistent.

Luckily, we had our trusty national park-issued, correctly-scaled (we think?) paper map with us. The map revealed a gas station at the stop closest to where we were. But gas, as I am fully aware after multiple corrections from Alex, is NOT the same as diesel fuel (so don’t call it gas!). Did the station nearest us have diesel fuel? If we drove there and it didn’t, we would definitely run out of fuel getting to the next one. So let’s call them to confirm – not! But if we drove to the nearest place outside of the park, it would be at least an hour and a half detour, assuming we could even make it there on the little fuel we had left.

Using the well-honed reasoning and problem-solving skills of two lawyers, we sent Alex to the nearest gas station within the park while the girls and I explored the geysers. Never mind that we didn’t determine a time or place to meet, or a back-up plan should he not find fuel. We had our phones to communicate! Oh wait, still no.

Not to worry – Alex refueled at the nearest station (though not before climbing an 8% grade for 3 miles while getting 3 mpg, and needing to coast down the mountain), found us an hour later by the geysers, and all was well again. On to the next stops on the list – Grand Prismatic Spring and Old Faithful.

We timed Old Faithful just right and saw the eruption at an off-peak hour in the evening when there were relatively few people around. For all the reports that Yellowstone was crazy busy – this was not our experience at all. Yes, there were clearly a lot of people at the park, but nothing like the hours of waiting and elbow to elbow crowds that we had read about. Anyway, it is truly unbelievable that Old Faithful exists in nature. We felt that way about the geysers and hot springs too. How could it be that these geothermal activities, prehistoric in nature, exist simultaneously alongside young herds of bison, steep evergreens and rolling freshwater streams?

It was right around then that we did the math and figured we would see a lot more of the park if we could just stay somewhere inside Yellowstone. This was always a Plan B in the back of our minds, but it soon became Plan A. Just a quick call later (somehow we had service near Old Faithful) and we booked one of the last rooms available for the evening. After a really successful overnight in Cody where we all slept in one room and everyone did great, we thought the same would be true again. Boy, were we wrong.

Not to be super negative or anything, but the room was a disaster; dirty, smelly, noisy, garden-level, and instantly obvious why it was still available last minute. And these rooms are what I assume covers the interest on the national debt – because they run about $500/night. It was a rough night- Audrey didn’t sleep more than a few hours, tossing and turning no matter which bed she was in, which means Alex and I hardly slept as well. To top it off, while I could have sworn I brought multiple diapers (no, Audrey is not yet potty-trained…), we used the last one overnight and had to hope that the general store sold them or else we would have had to go out of the park to find them! What a mess. In the end, we found diapers in the general store (along with Alex getting stuck in an anti-vax tirade from the cashier…) and we were saved for the day, but we will not be itching to stay in a hotel again any time soon. That being said, it was nice to wake up, breathe in the crisp, clean and chilly air, and know that we did not have a long drive in front of us.

That Saturday was a beautiful, hot day that we filled with hiking and wildlife sightings, and a trip to Yellowstone Lake for a picturesque lakeside picnic lunch. We said goodbye to the bison, knowing that we are not likely to see anymore wild bison once we left. I am not doing the day justice because the scenes of the park were absolutely breathtaking. We really were lucky to see the beauty that Yellowstone provides. It was spectacular.

When we returned to the RV, a family of elk was grazing just outside the fence of our campground. The sun set gently through the smoky haze and over the side of the mountain before I could capture a picture, but it secured the cap to a wonderful weekend. As the first and largest (I think?) national park, Yellowstone gets a lot of hype, but from what we saw on our trip through the park, the hype is warranted – hiccups included.