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Today the plan was to see Yellowstone National Park, especially the Old Faithful geyser, and then make it as far into Colorado as possible. It was a fairly quick drive from Rexburg, ID where I had stayed the previous night to West Yellowstone, MT and the park’s entrance.

I’ve been to a lot of national parks on this trip, Badlands, Glacier, Denali, Redwood, Death Valley, etc, and with the exception of three moose in Denali I haven’t really seem much wildlife besides deer (and frankly, deer creep me out because I’m always worried they will dart in front of my car). Yellowstone gave some really amazingly close up views of lots of different types of animals including buffalo and I believe I saw a bald eagle, not 100% sure, but that’s what it looked like to me (and yes they have plenty of deer too :)). I made it to Old Faithful, which goes off about every 90 minutes and I was lucky to get there just about 30 minutes before it erupted.

Because I was on a tight timeline today I needed to then get moving. My path happened to take me through the Grand Tetons national park as well which was absolutely covered in snow at an altitude of about 9,500 feet. I even saw people carrying around snowboards (in June!). The drive through Wyoming was more of what I had expected the first time I was in Wyoming earlier in the trip, very flat with occasional hills, however it did rain on me most of the way.

Nearing the Colorado border I took a slightly longer path in an attempt to dodge some pretty significant thunderstorms, and that worked perfectly. Not only did I get away from the storms, but I had a fantastic view of them from a far enough vantage point that I didn’t even get much rain.

My goal was to make it to Colorado Springs, but I was totally exhausted driving though Denver so I stopped for one of those refrigerated Starbucks drinks, and now at 4am, I am wide awake still Very effective Starbucks but at least I got caught up on the blogs

Tomorrow instead of going to El Paso, I’m going to try to make it to Fort Stockton, TX. In a few days the original plan called for a 1,000 mile trip from New Orleans to Key West, FL. On paper this seems doable, but a 16 or 17 hour driving day I think would just be too much, so by adding the day to Yellowstone, I’m running a few hours ahead of the plan for the next few days and so I think I can cut that day down to a more manageable 12 or 13 hour day.

Tags: Big Road Trip