ROAD TRIP: DRIVE DAY + YELLOWSTONE

Welcome to our Road Trip Series! If you are just joining, start here or scroll down for links to all the Road Trip Series posts.

Drive Day

Our first day was a long drive day. We drove from our home near Seattle to Bozeman, MT. We had a few different reasons for this. First, I knew we’d all be really excited and that excitement means that boredom and whining would be at a minimum. It worked. The drive was really, really easy. I was shocked, actually. It helped that we were driving through some beautiful and interesting landscapes. The kids mostly played with items in their road trip buckets and enjoyed the scenery. They, surprisingly, were really helpful to each other. Surprisingly in that they joyfully helped each other out with plugging in computers, or helping Wesley reach an item from his bucket, or helping keep the car tidy. I clearly did not give them enough credit because I was really thinking there would be some sort of bickering but, for that day, there wasn’t. Of course, we couldn’t end the first successful day without some ice cream! After tossing our stuff into our hotel room, we grabbed supper nearby and headed to Sweet Peaks Ice Cream. My husband jokes that we are going to be able to track the life of our children by photos of them eating ice cream. He’s not wrong and no one is complaining about this little habit!

Next, I didn’t want to have a long drive day and then have to get set up at camp in Yellowstone. I am not a fan of frenzy and I know that it makes me have a bad attitude. I wanted to enjoy the drive through Yellowstone to our campsite and not have to be on a strict timeline. I wanted to be able to be a “yes” mom and if we were running out of light, I knew I’d be stressed about getting camp set up instead of stopping to take in the park. I tried really hard to let go of being efficient, to an extent, for our road trip to leave room for exploring and spontaneity. That’s right. I planned for spontaneity. Okay, as ridiculous as that sounds, it’s kind of true. I didn’t plan down to the minute or even hour. You know what? We used all of those hours I didn’t plan for adventuring, meandering, wandering and it was stinkin’ amazing. I said “yes” to nearly every whim and I didn’t have a little voice in the back of my head worrying about how we would make it work. Honestly, I spent very few moments wondering about our timeline and when I did, it was because we had something scheduled for a specific time, which wasn’t often.

Yellowstone

For tons of detailed information head to the National Parks / Yellowstone website.

First up, the camping details. We camped at Canyon Campground. Honestly, I read somewhere that it was a great location for exploring the park, so I went with it. It also happened to be the campground at the highest elevation which didn’t really help the below-freezing temps at night. I’m not sure that it’s better than any other campground but you can check out information about all the campgrounds here. For us Midwest-raised people, or anywhere non-bear country really, make sure you read all the policies to keep the campgrounds safe. There were some that I hadn’t even thought about and it’s best to be prepared. In the most basic terms, nothing with scent should be kept at your campsite. This includes coolers, food, grills, tablecloths, any utensils used for food, toiletries, medicine, etc. I was so thankful for our grill and would not have changed bringing it but it also was kind of a pain to pack it back into the SUV after each meal was cooked. You also aren’t allowed to do dishes or brush your teeth at your campsite. It was all worth it not to have an encounter with a bear and to keep other’s safe at their sites but it did add some extra steps (and time) to camping.

Canyon Campground has bear-proof boxes for food at some sites and they are considered community property so you might be sharing the box with others. Honestly, it was too cold to want to trek back and forth to the nearest box so we stored all our food in our vehicle. This campground also had showers and they pumped out HOT water with sufficient pressure. Each shower stall included an entry area with hooks and a bench and then you take a little step down to the shower area. Everything that was in the entry area stayed dry. You could easily have two kiddos shower together or shower with a younger kiddo if they still need help washing. You are allotted two showers per night you stay but can use them each whenever you want through your stay. In the same building as the showers is plenty of washers and dryers. This came in handy when we had a nighttime pee accident and needed to wash a sleeping bag and jammies. I wasn’t sure what to expect for quality of washing and drying, but everything seemed clean and the dryers were fast-drying.

Above is a map of the main areas in Yellowstone. For a detailed map, head here. Check out this page for a list of the main areas and then all awesome sites within each area. We looked through it with the kiddos and when they thought something looked or sounded cool, we wrote it down and we added some of the must-sees to our summer bucket list. Yellowstone’s main road is set up as a giant loop with a road through the middle. We opted to do one half of the loop each day and then hit some of the outlying areas on our way out of the park on our last day. We knew we wanted to see Mammoth Hot Springs, West Thumb Geyser Basin, Old Faithful, Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, Mud Volcano, Tower Falls, Grand Prismatic Spring and the Petrified Tree. When you’re driving the loop, there are lots of spots to pull off and explore. They are typically clearly marked and the trails are well managed if uncovered ground but are often boardwalks or paved. We stuck to mostly boardwalks and well-worn paths. We weren’t quite ready to tackle the backcountry with our kiddos. We went in early June and while there were plenty of other visitors, it wasn’t unbearable. With the exception of the Grand Prismatic Spring, we always found a parking spot quickly and there wasn’t too much of a wait. At Grand Prismatic Spring, we parked on the road and had to walk quite a way before getting to the parking lot. I actually was super disappointed by this spring. It was too steamy and windy for us to see anything and we learned the best way to see it is actually by hiking up the Fairy Falls Trail to see the spring from above. Unfortunately for us, it was almost dinner and we needed to head back to camp before dark.

My kids’ favorites at Yellowstone where Dragon’s Breath Spring (Mud Volcano Area), Old Faithful, and West Thumb Geyser Basin’s trail along Yellowstone Lake.They loved seeing bison as we were driving and we even spotted a bear cub attempting to climb a tree. It’s momma was laying in the grass next to the tree but we could only make out her back. They were really far off the road and we only knew they were there because traffic was slowed and people had binoculars out. Here are some of our favorite spots in Yellowstone.